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I call them at 2:00AM to be sure I can reach them.

see attached picture

If today is any indication of how it's going to be, I'm thinking a hug in a glass may save a life: I tried to make it smaller, I really did.

I gotta go with Catherine on this one. I find it quite interesting that a number of us have the same thoughts or processes when it comes to preparing different types of returns. I too planned today for the ugly returns and even some that I didn;t complete because of needed research.

You know those people who don't set up voice mail? And don't have text messaging or email? It's ok to kill those people.

Erase, eradicate, exterminate, annihilate, obliterate, immolate, snuff, rub out, zap. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

I wouldnt say I procrastinate on the cringe worthy returns as much as I give preference to easy returns to get them out of the way and out the door asap. I hate to hold up easy ones because of the more involved ones.

I am extremely frustrated today. Everything, I mean every. single. return., is waiting for information. I have processed all returns that I can, only one is pending a state ack. I can't do anything today except am making followup phone calls...again. I should shut the computer down and take a nap. At least that would be beneficial.

After the following phone calls on Saturday; 1. Do you do Truck Drivers? 2. Still need to get my rental return done. 3. I'm a contractor with a 1099misc, can you help me. Send that glass to Sidney, OH. Be sure to bypass Chaz, Crazy Mary and Janitor Bob! This drink is for me!

Yes, I put the pro in procrastinate, why do you think I'm on here all the time? Seriously, I don't mind the difficult returns as much as the difficult clients. My late (not dead, yet) Realtor brought his crap in Friday. You know - the spreadsheets where nothing lines up and he only added 1/2 the column together, and he doesn't even know. Left an envelope taped to my office door this morning with his "corrections" and stuff he forgot Friday. I sent him a text: Come back and get an extension request and mail them a check. You ARE getting a extension.

I think her doctor told her to drink a glass of red wine a day, but they didn't specify the size

I can relate. I don't know how many passwords I have created that say "I hate frikking passwords". Tom Hollister, CA

Contract labor. *giggles*

do my complicated ones on the weekend when no one is here to bug me. only phone calls are from my kids, and they have pretty much learned by now to leave me alone by this time of year. Then on those days when I have headaches, (such as appointments) then I fly thru my easy ones. But by this time of year, all the good gravy ones are long gone.

I wish I could convince everyone to use text or email instead of wanting to talk on the phone. People always seem to have the worst timing when they call me and I end up playing phone tag later. Or they call and expect an immediate answer on something that I have to look up. With text or email I get back to them at my convenience and if I have to look something up for the response I can do that too.

My husband doesn't have voice mail either and wouldn't know how to use it if he did. I don't do texting either, but e-mailing works for my young clients. My cell phone was just ringing while I was on the land line with another client. Yes, voice mail was left. I am amazed to find out how many people know that tomorrow is April 1 and keep telling me that they waited so they wouldn't be bothering me while I was busy. How much busier can I get than I am right now. I will never understand the human race. Never!!!!

LIKE like Like

Thank you, I was waiting for permission. Can I include the client who listens to my whole explanation and then says I have to call back to explain that to his spouse when she's home, who of course does not have voice mail, email, or text (not that I'm typing a tax explanation on my tiny phone, but at least I could leave a message to call me for the explanation).

Judy, I'll hire you for a week. I have a guest bedroom and bathroom. You can CHOOSE which returns you want to prepare! For full disclosure: it snowed this morning. But, the sun is out now. Yes, I procrastinate. See how long it took me to answer whether or not I procrastinate! I get stuck on a stinkie but don't move on, or don't want to even begin a stinkie so don't start anything that arrived after the stinkie either or postpone proofreading a stinkie.... Over the weekend started pushing through some personal returns, finally skipping over the partnership and multiple trusts that I was delaying. I think if we all took a pile of our returns and passed them to the person above us in this thread like a chain letter, we'd all get more done. (Jas, you can pass to the bottom of the thread.) It's easier for me to dig into a return I don't know than one I know will give me problems, whether missing info, or new issue to research, or lots of new assets to enter, or whatever.

I pretty much do them in the order they come in, but if I'm frustrated by the growing 'need more info' pile, I might pull out an easy one that I know I can get done & make me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something! And yes, tonight I'm slogging through the one with foreign rental, out of state rental, 10 different donations of stuff, and a foreign trust return.

I agree that clients should understand. Had the situation today where a client had an appointment but never told me about (3) schedule "C" that I would be preparing. Threw the rest of the day off. My attitude is the same as michaelmars. All of us have waited way past our appointment times to see a doctor, dentist or some other medical professional. To me, it is the nature of our business.

SOooooo True. It's very sad when tallying numbers at the end of the night. I have counted what I have left and divided by the number of days to try and set my 'per day' goal. I really want to be done by the 11th, but it's not looking very hopeful.

I had a nice easy one yesterday. It felt good. In general I procrastinate on everything -- easy returns, hard returns, even personal stuff that I enjoy (hobbies).

That's it in a nutshell. Today must be the day for icky returns. It took me most of the day to finish one and haven't even rechecked it yet. I created the situation myself because we came to the retreat for the weekend and I only brought difficult returns along. Not so gosh awful difficult like the one that went out yesterday with seven states; but something on almost every line, two Sch C, I had papers everywhere. This gal is really organized too, just so much stuff. (foreign exchange students, tuition credits, two homes in two cities with an office in each along with W2. Tomorrow when I get home, I get to wade through it all again, but after a short nap with my headache, I am about to dive into a new (from HRB) client with lots of investment stuff. YES, sometimes I do procrastinate on the messier ones, but it is getting too close to the deadline to dawdle and , oh what a relief when one of those gets wrapped up.

Sometimes I do... and/or "justify" it by working on a bunch of easy returns to "get them out of the way" except then the nasty ones are still there. Like you, I set aside specific times to work on the nasty ones -- but not solely those; it's too depressing. A bunch of the "ickier" ones go on extension, too -- if I need to peel apart layer upon layer of junk, I don't want to do that against the April deadline or delay my good (organized) clients' returns.

Hey, RIta, would it be a usual and necessary business expense for you? Contract labor? Just thinking about whether I can deduct....

I'm making myself do only 'stinky' returns today. Complicated returns, or returns where clients aren't very organized, etc. I'm only on my 4th return, and I've been here since right after Church . I need to find a better system. It's depressing when at the end of the day, your numbers aren't very good.

I think the best part about killing those you can't contact is that no one will know for weeks that they are gone - they will just keep trying to get in touch with them.

Maybe I should have qualified the original post to say "people with no contact information are killing ME." Wait, I think there are clauses in the 10 commandments. Yes, there they are: 10.1: "Thou shalt be allowed to kill those with inadequate contact information." 10.2: "Thou shalt not disconnect thy land line and answering machine if thou dost not answer thy cell phone or set up thy voice mail."

I am going on 4 years without setting up my cell phone voice mail system and I am happy to say I have disabled text messaging too. Although I have a separate number for texting, I limited my texting to a minimum. I hate texting and receiving text at any time of the day.

Yes, yes you can.

Yes! And my clients will live longer, too. Win/win! Like medicine! Proverbs 17:22 I think I have no choice now.

Sounds like nap time to me!! That _would_ be very productive. I'm about ready to go off to the kitchen and bake some scones (promised my husband) and have that as an excuse to turn the oven on. We've been having ice-cold rain mixed with sleet and a few snowflakes all day, and this place is down to 65F again. That is just bleeping cold!!

So is laughter!!

Too many passwords, too many different time changes to require password change. If a hacker can figure out a password so easily, how could I in a million years outsmart one with a SuperDuper Password that I would actually remember and not have it tattooed to my arm. I would go for an eye scan or finger print just not to have to remember a stupid Frikking Password! If only all software and websites allowed this.

In some countries they still corn and grass feed cows, in the U.S. now they have organic fed cows, which tends to be more expensive to maintain therefore the milk and meat cost more. My grandfather had cows, and he will tell us, you see that calf, that calf is yours and the next year we would visit his ranch and ask where is my cow, he would tell us, oh your calf drowned or it died of a snake bite.

I just use Adobe Acrobat to scan client documents, and then save to PDF from the print screen in the software, and put the two files together for "One File" for that tax client for the year. I control the construction, and the placement and naming of the file, I do not want to give that up to some other software. Rich

I finally cleaned up the QB for a partnership I have been looking at and skipping over. Aaargh. I really don't understand some people's logic when it comes to QB. i KNOW they are not accountants, but I would still think that logic would dictate. I also now have most of my clients set up where I remote in to their QB file (through log me in, Radmin, etc.) and do my clean up right there. I gave up on clients making journal entries long ago. This has saved me quite a bit of time, because I don't have to go back and fix my previous year's balance sheet before I can move forward with the current year.

This happens to me, and I don't know why. Somehow, the long Sch SE gets chosen, I don't know who sneaks in here and does that. My clients can't handle the long Sch SE, I have learned the hard way. It freaks them out. Always saves them a dollar, but nooooo, I gotta print stuff over to avoid the whole conversation. Three more Saturdays, Guys.

I do the same thing. I go thru and count then realize I can't get 10 done a day with the ones left and I start sorting who's going on extension. Which some of those take just as long to figure out what they need to pay for the 4868

Rolling along!

You need to be careful how word things when you try to hire him. If you say you want somebody "smoked", you might get something other than the intended result. Right, Crank?

He hasn't replied to your offer. I think he is looking for a full time job with possible overtime.

Hell, I don't drink, but have what's left of a six-pack of O'Douls in the fridge. I think I should pick up another. This time of year, I need the vicarious thrill of pretending I'm drinking. My roommate is putting pineapple on the pizza, but we are both out of bacon. The horror! Maybe while I'm at the store I should pick up some non-alcoholic wine too. I really need some nonalcoholic bourbon....

Yep, the old "regular and continuous" problem. Sort of like these clients test us "repeatedly and horrifically". After this day, I think it would be worth it to just put Crank on payroll.

I think he could get away with putting the income on line 21 if he only kills one or two, he hasn't killed any before or a regular basis, and he doesn't plan on killing any in the future. For me, that last part is definitely a problem...

Disability Income Disability income is not taxable if the individual paid the premiums on the disability policy or contributed (on an after-tax basis) to an employer-sponsored disability plan [IRC Secs. 104(a)(3) and 105; Rev. Rul. 58-90; Ltr. Rul. 200305013]. Disability income is taxable if an employer contributes to a funded plan or pays the policy's premiums for the employee (Kees). When the taxpayer reimbursed his firm for disability premiums paid by the firm by deducting the premium amounts from his shareholder loan account, the Tax Court ruled that disability benefits received by this taxpayer were excludable from his gross income under IRC Sec. 104(a)(3). From the inception of the policy until the premiums were waived, the taxpayer treated the premiums as personal items and paid his share of the premiums through his loan account, and the firm never deducted them (Cotler). Payments for loss of use or function of the body (e.g., limb) are always nontaxable [IRC Sec. 105©]. Individuals receiving taxable disability income for permanent and total disability may be able to claim the credit for the elderly or disabled, discussed in IRS Pub. 524.

Frikkin Banana Pudding is the best!!

No problems with software here. Just clients. Standalone, Windows 7 Pro.