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My wife just mentioned how pleasant tax season is since we ridded our practice of some of the the real PITA's a few years ago - the kind that just like to keep everything in their world stirred up. So I had this thought. Would it be wrong to ask our prospective clients to submit to a personality test before we agree to take them on? Here is a sample of the client we will accept: Phone call yesterday: Client: Hi Ron, I just wanted to check and make sure you received the package I mailed a couple weeks ago. Me: Yes, client, we did get it. Things are just a little bogged down around here with the new reporting requirements and....... Client cuts me off mid-sentence: Ron, I don't care about all that. I have complete and utmost confidence in you and your staff. I just wanted to make sure you got my stuff, that's all. Have a wonderful day! Me: Thanks Client, we will be in touch. I want all of my clients to be like that.

Guy in here whining because his insurance cost $467 a month. Me: It actually cost $210, didn't it? Your subsidy was $257? You gotta get up preeetty early to get that past tax preparers, people.

I know how you feel. I have lost my mind and I am pretty sure my wife took it!

I'd try that, but I'm afraid some of my clients might want ME to submit to a personality test. That's when the real problems would surface...

What he really meant was: "It should only cost $260 a month. Then with my $257 subsidy, I'd be paying the difference. I think everybody should pay their way on this thing, and I'm willing to come up with my $3 fair share."

I was going to suggest if there are a lot, go back to 2012 and try rolling over. You are correct, unless there's a ton of assets, it's easier to re-enter than wait on tech.

I think I would enjoy it more if you said: "AND you have to return some of the advance payments... because based on your salary they should have helped you only with $10 per month".

Ha - especially one named RitaB!

For all those who use or contribute here: Keep enjoying the season! (tax and otherwise)

I've settled the "guessing" and uncertainty for my clients in such things as contributions. Each year I take Post It notes and write various figures on them. I then stick them on my ceiling. At least this way, they have something to go by when they gaze up at the ceiling when asked for various amounts such as contributions! ????

You can't always let a client's problem become your problem. This client is a problem client and you may be better off without them. Why should you try to rewrite the past when they didn't worry about writing it correct in the first place. They probably didn't file tax returns because their tax guy didn't tell them too. LOL. I would look at their tax situation as it is and record/prepare it like it is. If you try to redo their facts you will just encourage them to keep doing things wrong since they think you will make it right. You should prepare based upon the facts and just the facts. This type of client needs to be told that it cost them to not have a professional tax preparer like you in those past years. If the client doesn't like it they can always get someone else and you would be better off.

WARNING **** Political commentary coming. TP & Spouse come in. Have the 1095A in their stack. No insurance first 2 months. Covered CA for the rest of the year. $1427 per month premium. $1103 subsidy. Do the reconciliation. They have to pay back $1090. Actually a very good result. Their take: "That stupid Obama took $1090 of my refund. I thought it was supposed to make things better". Then I show them my fee for the additional forms. Their take: "You mean I have to pay you more so that you can tell Obama how much of my refund to take?" My take in my head: "At least you are blaming Obama for this mess. And I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. Besides, you got a $1427 per month policy for about $500 per month. Go ahead and get pissed at Obama. I get more money and I get to sit and listen to you trash the guy who thinks he just helped you out and does not understand that you are pissed at him. This is a win-win for me" Tom Newark, CA

Unfortunately one of my clients got rejected today with this dreaded reject. This client is not due a refund but has a balance due that she may have already paid. I wonder how many more times this is going to happen to people. Heck it could happen to any one of us at any time.

It's 2 years as an non-resident for a J-1.

"I feel so very privileged that our government has bestowed upon me, the privilege of enforcing their wonderful insurance laws." "I did not seek out nor ask for this position." "This privilege has required me to spend many hours and thousands of dollars to become knowledgeable about how to do this enforcement for the next 5 years." "Therefore, costs for me to enforce the insurance laws must be passed on to the people whom the law is being enforced upon." I have this memorized to the letter. It stops the complainers in their tracks.

i seem to have some sort of LOSER magnet outside my door.

I am finding more and more of these. Not happy campers!

Here's a handy macro for Drake. For all clients who have no ACA issues, it marks the form appropriately. It launches from the main data entry screen and returns to the same place. HC>x>~ I used Alt-C because the keys are close together. (It meant overriding whatever Drake had pre-entered there - I don't remember what it was but I don't use theirs anyhow).

Well spoken. I agree 100%

Will do, too busy to even think about it at this time. What if you tried to delete the NY return and added it when the Fed and NJ are completed? Does NY have an entry to show the amount of pension not taxable to NY? In NC we have an entry field for non-taxable government retirement benefits. Just wondering.

According to the original post, it doesn't appear this was a "liquidation". The shareholder retired and therefore I have to agree with Old Jack on this one. The only other thing that may come into play is if the shareholder has loaned the S-Corp money and the assets could be converted to personal use as a return of capital.

While it is never any of the folks who use that phrase, I have a number of people who come awfully darned close to the same amount to charity year after year. With receipts to back them up.

Or "what did we claim last year?". As though that had any bearing on this year...

I want a shock device that zaps them second and subsequent times they say, "I didn't know how that worked."

Shared by a friend: A little boy was doing his math homework. He said to himself, 'Two plus five, that son of a bitch is seven. Three plus six, that son of a bitch is nine....' His mother heard what he was saying and gasped, 'What are you doing?' The little boy answered, 'I'm doing my math homework, Mum.' 'And this is how your teacher taught you to do it?' the mother asked 'Yes,' he answered. Infuriated, the mother asked the teacher the next day, 'What are you teaching my son in math?' The teacher replied, 'Right now, we are learning addition.' The mother asked, 'And are you teaching them to say two plus two, that son of a bitch is four?' After the teacher stopped laughing, she answered, 'What I taught them was, two plus two, THE SUM OF WHICH, is four.'

That's how I calculate taxes, Catherine....especially as the end draws near.

"How much can I claim without raising any flags?"

Or, whatever the standard amount is.

Remember this one? So I emailed the son about my decision and reasoning. Yesterday he emailed me with a copy of his mother's signed durable POA from 2001 (I think around the time of diagnosis of declining mental health) naming him as contingent with all rights to sign, etc. "I'm thinking you may not have seen this POA before..." Right. Still an attorney 'feels' he could still 'help' his mother sign the returns. I assured him that I have no problem any longer with anything except an attempt to have his mother sign. He should sign and be done with it. We'll see what happens next! Can't believe in all our exchanges that he has never mentioned this. No, I didn't specifically ask as deceased dad told me that she did not have a POA. Guess he forgot.

At the top of the Simplified Method tab you have to choose which 1099R you want to see. It doesn't default to the same one you were on in the Input tab.

But in the meantime the IRS is wading through a pile of incorrect information sent in by the taxpayer. My experience has been the same as JMDAVIS; get the correct information sent in and a request to retract the taxpayers' initial response.

I just re-entered them. I felt it would be quicker than waiting on tech support. I hope they don't somehow duplicate themselves (both show up) in the efile. Eeegads.

OMG, yes! And when a client waits a month to pick up you don't sit there going "Uh, WTH did I do there?"

I annotate *everything* because no matter how crystal clear it is now, it will be dense mud next year. Heck, it will be dense mud next *month* for that matter.