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Catherine, I would include in that priority mail another invoice for time and postage. Maybe they won't pay but it will be hanging around to send again in a few months or add to next year's balance due.

Dear Client - We give you a complete copy of your return every year. And for the past 15 years i have been here at this location, i have forked over copy after extra copy of returns for clients. But since this is the FIFTH TIME you, dear loser, are asking for another copy, you are going to pay for that time, that paper, and that ink!

I would tell him to not send you any documents. If he does, I don't think that ethically you can return the documents to him since they are for another taxpayer that he does not have a POA for at this point. I know that you can't give him mom's tax return without you having either authorization from mom or for him being appointed to handle her affairs.

Dear Client, thank you for bringing in unopened mail, from ME, when you dropped off your tax documents. No, you do not have a sales tax number yet because that was your Application for Sales Tax Number that you didn't open. Yes, I know you have been so busy. Your nails and hair look fab, BTW.

Priceless! Rita, if you don't mind, I'm going to use those words on a plaque in my office and my house and my game room and my camp and for license plates on my car and on Solana and Mariana (my 2 lazy horses)!

I agree. It is my practice to collect before the return leaves the office. But in a situation like this, I have also been backed into a corner. In fact - just had one last year. It was actually a late arriving 1099 that required a 1040X. I sent the return in May with a bill. I sent a reminder statement with interest every month until December. I did not send him an invitation to come back and stopped sending him statements. Last month he calls and says he wants us to do his return again and says "I believe I owe Ron some money from last year. Can you take a payment over the phone?" We did and he is now on strict COD - I do not care what the sob story will be.

I agree, Joan. Last year I went to Vanguard and Fidelity and printed Performance Details of the mutual funds one client owns but pays $19,000 to have managed by a firm in Nashville. I have never in all my life seen fees like that. He says, "But my portfolio has doubled in five years." Me: "The STOCK MARKET has doubled in five years. Everybody made what you made." He's a retired engineer. Tried to do his own very complicated return to save on tax prep. Some people don't want to be helped.

If you find me dead on a jogging trail just know that I was murdered elsewhere and dumped there.

I JUST OPENED MY WINDOW!!!!! There is still three feet of snow outside the window - but the temps are up in the mid-40s and the air is starting to smell like spring. I think I will leave the window open for an hour or two just to air the place out! Gosh - does that air feel good!

Dear Client -- Thank you so much for sending along the W-2 from YOUR job that I asked about and was told there wasn't because you got laid off. That was indeed why your wages line looked so low; it just had your wife's income! Thank you especially for now having to re-do and re-print your return AND spend money for Priority Mail to send it to you -- and your wife paid me when she picked the returns up last night so I can't even add on a re-print and mailing fee. At least I didn't have to deal with ACA nonsense since when (just) your health insurance got cancelled you could still go to the VA - so that counts as full-year coverage.

Dear ATX.... When inputting info on Form 8949, why, oh why, am I not allowed to put a decimal after the dollar amounts? It keeps reminding me that "The value must be numeric and without cents (Limited to 15 characters) OR Expired." Just wondering!!

Dear Clients.....my 6:30 PM client rescheduled for three weeks out (Yeah!!!); I have a 2:00 hair appointment and have no idea what time I will be home on this beautiful, sunny 50 degree day. A am actually going shopping for necessities and might even buy myself some flowers, Rita! Dear Hair Salon Client....(who just called) I am coming there to have my hair done, not to discuss your tax situation and the fact that I cannot read your writing and/or you are upset because you don't want anyone else in the salon hearing what we are talking about. You just blasted a hole in my beautiful day!!!!

I have several clients with a "big name" brokerage firm (not sure if I should mention the name on a public forum). The one I'm working on right now is 40 pages covering 2 accounts. All trades are in and out of mutual funds. But this is an improvement over 2012 that was 66 pages over 6 accounts. Why would one person have 6 (sub?) accounts in one brokerage - not counting the retirement accounts. Asked her & she didn't know. As far as she was concerned it was just the one personal account and one retirement account. Then, there was the client who had a different brokerage account, but huge number of trades - including several purchases & sales that occurred after she passed away (yes, even after the firm was notified that she passed away).

Ah the youth of today, how do they survive in this world with a limited vocabulary? TP's 21yr old dependent responses to my questions: TP said you had health insurance on your own? ahuh Did you get the insurance through the marketplace? I don't know How much did you pay out of your pocket? I don't know Are you sure you had health insurance because it doesn't seem you did? nah, I did.

If you don't have the 1116 in the return, entering the foreign tax from the 1099-div or K-1 will automatically populate the 1040 if under the $300 or so exception to filing the 1116. If the 1116 is in the return, you have to add all the other infor, including separating out the foreign Divs from the domestic.

If long form not required, I don't even bother, just let the total go to 1040 page 2. ATX gives a cautionary warning but doesn't prevent the efiling, no red print warning.

I understand why YOU are not comfortable with it; I wouldn't be either. Your insurance folks might be a good place to start.

Knowing what you know, I do not believe that I would prepare the return without him getting a POA. And since that will now take a court hearing, I doubt that he would be able to get the POA in time for the April 15th filing. So I would inform him that the two week meeting is off and that until he does what he is suppose to do, the best you can do is return his documents or extend the return. He would be wise to talk to the administrative folks at the home that houses his mother so that he realizes that you are not just blowing smoke. It could be very well the case that the son just does not want to deal with this. None of us want to see our loved ones in that sort of state. But life sometimes is hard. And we need to deal with it as it presents. Now, all of that above is just my opinion. Calling your insurance carrier would be a prudent thing to do.

But, little things mean a lot. Just like no mailing address on the amended return letter this year. Aaaannnd, my stapler kept jamming. My friend, possi, told me to get premium staples. It worked. Little victories mean a lot, too.

Anyone ever wonder why the cents column is still on the forms? 1040 and lettered schedules have this except for Sch D.

That is true, however client had been fighting for this for three years, finally won in November of 2014. The client had no way of knowing that this would finally happen. No time to make correction, but is penalized now becsuse of it. I know its the law, but it would seem like some sort of provision should have been made. This is the difference between owing 2500 and 9800.

Please tell me you made that up and it is not for real? Tom Newark, CA

Had to clean off the snow....A bit.! Then look what happened when the car warmed up...

I think if I was a complete numbnuts, I would still know how to find my EIN number for my LLC and would not require 6 emails from my very lovely tax professional. How bout you?

Speaking of open windows, I've been looking for a reason to post this picture I snapped while driving down the road in Charlotte yesterday. I think these two are happy it's warm enough for their owner to open the windows...

I'm going to put taxes aside and get out for a nice run this evening...Who knew 50 deg would seem so warm?

I had a client come in this morning and ask me if I would reduce my fee this year because she was having some budgeting issues. The last time I saw her, she ran me down in Walmart to show me her boyfriend and tell me they were going to Europe for vacay. She has burned through her dead husband's retirement. I told her, sorry, I can't do that, but I'd be glad to hold your check until you have the money. She: What do you think about the free tax services? Me: Not much, what do you think about getting a job? (Yes, I did!) She: Well, I'm overqualified for everything here. But can I put you down as a reference? Me: Well, I know nothing about your work qualifications, but I guess I can tell them I prepared your taxes for 12 years. I mean 11. Anyhow, after she left I got back-to-back new and delightful clients, so yippee for me!

I think in the span of this tax season, Judy has moved to the head of the class as the board's "go to" expert on ACA. It has been impressive to watch. Tom Newark, CA

Yep - that would be may fee. And when the client showed up to get the return, I would have bandages on all my typing fingers and have very dark rings around my eyes and tell the client that the e-filed version had to have all of the detail typed in. I like to justify my fee. :)

Dear Client, It is really not necessary for you to come in to ask me what to do about your not having that K-1 yet. You know, the one you never get until April, and that has caused an amended return in our past. God made a thing called a telephone for situations like this. And, no, I do not need for you to bring in the rest of your stuff so I can get started. I don't need to get started. I need to get finished. That's how this works.

The corrected forms are beginning to be available by the taxpayer logging in to the Marketplace and checking the "messages" section.

Everything was going fine with ATX this year...but in the last 10 days or so, I am suddenly and unexpectedly having problems with the Fed client letter not recognizing state or local forms/letters. For example the below error is suddenly appearing on a Fed client letter IMPORTANT: Currently, there is not a supported state form associated with the state client letter below. Discard the state client letter and open a new one. the last time I opened this return (2 days ago) this was not there...and I have made ZERO changes to the return. Discarding the OH letter and adding a new one does nothing. I had a similar issue with the Fed client letter not recognizing the OH local return/letter. All letters are fine if I do NOT combine. but when I tell the Fed letter to combine the Fed with State & local, I occasionally get these weird issues. I have tried discarding and replacing all letters...same issue. I even removed the OH IT 1040 and added it again...same issue. Not the end of the world, but annoying.

Aren't the values printed on your ceiling? That's where my clients seem to look for them.

Thanks for the reply, Ron. I was going to reply to his email and thought I would throw this out first. He has said in the past that he thought it was too expensive ('I don't want to spend the money') and that he would have to spend too much time in this state to get it done. I was hoping after father's death, he would have made plans to do this on this trip. I will call insurance - only the second time in 20 years but a prudent choice, I think.

I was hoping ATX had fixed the letters. In 2013 the letters were the biggest problem area. All was well in 2014 until one day last week I noticed the wording of my letters had returned to the default wording and some of my formatting had disappeared. I guess a lot of users use the letters as they are but I find them horrendously wordy and have made substantial changes to them. I've copied some of the letters into rtf files so I can easily return them to the way I want but the client letters have so many possible configurations that I can't do that. I guess i could do different portions but I haven't taken the time to do that yet.

Judy, once again the life saver! I completely missed that line when I looked before and nearly missed it again not realizing at first that it was a jump to line. I did the input and it didn't help her, after all, on any front. But I learned something new! And yes, I understand that the money was available to pay in 2014. I cannot imagine what she was thinking when signing up then receiving a full year of SS and withdrawing $29,000 from her IRA. So at 579% of the poverty level and her selection of a plan 26% higher than the SLCSP, she needs to repay all $5225 of the advance ptc. She's not happy, an understatement, but didn't deserve so much credit.

I'm not Deb or Jack, but if you open the tab for line 20 SS benefits and look toward the bottom you should see a line for line 20 on there that is labeled for the lump sum, that is if it still looks like it did in 2011. Click on that line for the lump sum and hop to the lump sum worksheet. The lump sum worksheet is only beneficial if the income was low enough in the earlier year(s) to which the lump relates that would make less of the benefits taxable than if they are all included in the one calculation for the current year, BUT then the taxable portion is still all included on the 2014 return, the lump sum worksheet is only to determine how much will be taxable. ATX does handle this calculation well, so you might as well try it both ways. Since the benefits are received in 2014 and are all going to be reported on the 2014 no matter what year they are for, the entire lump sum amount received will be included in MAGI for purposes of calculating the premium tax credit on Form 8962. I was trying to say that in my earlier post and didn't want to come out directly and say other information given was wrong, but there is no provision that I can find that says that only SS benefits paid for the current year are included in MAGI and prior years paid as a lump sum in 2014 are not. I don't see why this would be any different than any other income that was received during the year. The purpose of using MAGI is to take into account all of the resources the taxpayer had available during the year to pay the premiums and determine if they needed help via the subsidy. It makes no sense to exclude the lump sum payment simply because it is for a prior year, because the whole point is that it was received and available for spending toward the premiums in the 2014 tax year. Someone let me know if you find something to the contrary.

This sure is a cranky group. It may be time for a nap and some chicken corn soup. Nite-Nite everyone.

Dear maybe client: you are a total douche and I understand why your wife isn't pissed you asked for a divorce. Bullying her into filing joint just because you owe a lot of tax because you emptied your 401(k) to pay child support isn't currying any favor with me. And that brief you prepared yourself to file with the court? Not gonna win you any points with the judge, even if they did use the wrong factor to compute your child support.

Yes, I've no idea of the parents or the grandkid's financial situation. I finished working up the client and she's in the 0% capital gain/qualified dividend rate, so she won't actually be paying any tax on them. It's that time of the year when all the weird situations are come in.....

34 here. But thats about 50 degree warmer than it has been most of winter!! Lots of grey snow mountains to get around, but me and the dog got out for a real walk! :D :pop:

I ran once. I was about three and was playing some sort of catch me if you can find me sort of game. I had a brown paper bag over my head to keep me from seeing and I ran full force in to the porch and knocked out my two front teeth. So for about five years I got to sing the song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". I am guessing my siblings had something to do with that bag being over my head. I was a middle child, ya know. Try running with your eyes closed - it adds a completely different dimension to the experience. Anybody can run with their eyes open. Oh - and I still battle with a speech lisp as a result of that. For the longest time I could not understand why people would laugh at me when I would say "sit down".

Interesting - I had 2 clients in the past couple of years with Curian with the same issues. I also mentioned churning. One client vigorously defended the advisor, the other changed quickly. I truly believe in both cases it was churning with great results for the advisor, not so great for the client.

I wouldn't attach anything to the return. The four entries are enough. The IRS already has the 1099-B info. And you are not charging enough. Rich

lol - You guys are too much. I guess here is mine for the day. Dear Client: Your K-1s for the S-Corp that you emailed me about this morning will be ready when you pay the statement for the end of the year that I have sent you three times already. Dear Client: Really? You made six figure income in 2014 with just the two of you on the return and now you have to pay back the $4,000 advanced premium credit you received and you do not understand? Dear Client: No - the $40,000 you paid cash for land is still not deductible and is still not a like kind exchange. There you go - those are all already from this morning and it is just 4 hours into the week. It can only get better, right?

Dear client: Please stop calling me to tell me that your state refund has not been processed yet. I cannot control the state office, and I do not know when they will process it. I have told you on 2 previous phone calls that the return is shown as accepted and that the state does call for up to 8 weeks to process your return. I do not care that your brother-in-law already got his refund, but I will remind you that he came in and PAID me about 3 weeks sooner than you did so therefore his return was processed about 3 weeks sooner than yours.......Are you really that desperate for the money? then please go to the rapid refund people next year!

Hotel would be Sch C. Less than average of 7 days rental. Rich

I used export and import just yesterday. I worked on a return at another location; exported to jump drive; came home and imported into my main computer to finish, print and efile. AND, this year you have the option of overriding the existing return when you import. Before, it always imported it as a "copy of" which was terribly annoying.

Thanks Judy for doing research for me. I feel embarrassed that I could have looked that up. Is too tired and hungry to think a good enough excuse? I have been at it all day and all weekend and now I think I finally have some time to grab a bite. Thanks again.

I'm missing education credits because I am a single-mother-of-three-rich-mom making over $62,000. I cannot tell you how blown away I am at that. I am getting more flowers next month because of this.