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OK. Now is the time to tell this TRUE story. My friend Wendy is a lawyer. She was in a huge pre-trial meeting. Lawyers everywhere, supposedly trying to settle something but actually involved in a p1$$ing contest. No women except for her. She got *totally* fed up with them, stood, and said, "I am going to leave this room for ten minutes. Whip 'em out, measure them, put 'em back. Then we'll settle this case." and walked out of the room. Ten minutes later she went back and a room full of very sheepish male lawyers settled the case. History does NOT record the results of their measurements - probably none of them had a tape measure, so it would have been only relative.

Somewhere I heard another fake name for a law firm: Poore, Lee & Dowd.

Disclaimer: I didn't design this site, I just manage the software that is purchased from a vendor. Most of the colors you see are the defaults, although I can tweak (and have tweaked) the style sheets to make minor changes. On this site, post text is all nearly black on white... it's not black, but it's very very dark. There are other bits of data that aren't as dark, which I assume are what you're referring to. The reason is that the forum is very information dense, and while none of the content is unimportant, some of of the it is definitely MORE important than the rest. Less important information like how long ago a post was made or a signature line for example is lighter in color so that it doesn't compete visually with the more important text. Deciding what is important and giving it the appropriate visual weight is a basic design principle. If everything stood out, then you would be left with a lot of noise and overall readability (and usability) would suffer. In Web Accessibility terms, the WCAG 2.0 specification (Level AA) says that a contrast ratio (foreground to background) of 4.5:1 is required to pass. Some of the lighter greys fall just shy of that ratio here, so I'll darken them up a bit. If after darkening the light grey text (I'll get to it in a few minutes) you still have trouble seeing it, I might recommend either calibrating your monitor, or using your browser's built in accessibility features to help out, such as magnifying the page. (CTRL + (plus) to zoom in, CTRL - (minus) to zoom out.

Getting closer to the 'holodeck" of Star Trek, aren't we?

My last EA card took 3 or 4 months to get to me. With the reduced staffing at the IRS, it's probably not a very high priority.

Other Notable Enhancements The save warning on extensions has been disabled by default and you will no longer be prompted to confirm changes if those e-files are only Extensions.

That was easy enough. Nice when someone says the survey only takes a few minutes, and it really does!

Yay! That has been very annoying.

Its not a hologram. Its a mock up/ representation of what you would see IF you were wearing their virtual reality headset. The headset shows you the room you are actually in in real life and then puts the cgi whale into that environment. The whale can even interact with the environment of the room. As shown by the water reflections on the floor. Its 'augmented reality' i.e. you see the room you are in and the cgi on top of it. BUT without the headset on you would see nothing. Still pretty impressive though.

Mike have you tried going to File>Option. and then on the General tab, in the Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office, change the Office theme to Dark Gray and office background to No background I tried some of the thing suggested in here http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/outlook2013whiteandbright.htm

You may consider a Business Bad Debt on Form 4797. Not knowing all the facts I have attached some case law of which I had sucess. Business versus nonbusiness bad debt: Dagres, 136 T.C. No. 12 Filed 3/28/2011 “Section 166 distinguishes between business bad debts and nonbusiness bad debts. Sec. 166(d); sec. 1.166-5(b ), Income Tax Regs. Business bad debts may be deducted against ordinary income and are deductible whether such debts become wholly or partially worthless during the year. Nonbusiness bad debts may be deducted only as short-term capital losses and only if the debts become wholly worthless in the year claimed. Sec. 166(d). A bad debt is characterized as business rather than nonbusiness if the debt bears a proximate relationship to the taxpayer's trade or business. Sec. 1.166-5(b ), Income Tax Regs. In determining whether such relationship exists, the proper measure is the taxpayer's dominant motivation; a significant motivation is not sufficient. The business nexus required for deducting a bad debt under section 166(a) exists where the dominant motive in incurring the debt was protecting or enhancing the taxpayer’s trade or business.” Dominant motivation is the key in determining the classification of the bad debt. If loans to the business can be documented as to keeping the business alive, this factor should serve to justify a business bad debt. “Protecting and enhancing the business” is cited in the court cases as substantial reasons. Rezazazadeh, T.C. Memo, 1996-245 file 3/28/1996 “In determining the dominant business or nonbusiness motive of a shareholder lending money to a corporation in which the shareholder is also an employee, courts look primarily to three objective factors: The amount of the loan with the taxpayer's investment in the corporation, the amount of the taxpayer's after-tax salary, and other sources of gross income available to the taxpayer at the time of the loan. United States v. Generes, supra; Scifo v. Commissioner, 68 T.C. 714, 723 (1977); Shinefeld v. Commissioner, 65 T.C. 1092 (1976). The larger the taxpayer's investment, the smaller his salary, and the larger his other sources of gross income, the more likely the courts are to find a dominant nonbusiness motive for the loan. On the other hand the more significant the after-tax salary from this business is to the overall gross income of the taxpayer and in relationship to the amount loaned to the business, the better chances for a business bad debt.”

Indeed. First time I ever posted about this annoyance, some users defended the warning. I couldn't believe it.

And don't drive like MY brother!

My son used to reverse his phone to white letters on black screen when he was at the movies so that he could text without the light from the phone disturbing other people. I don't think he did it to save battery life, but maybe.

To go further out on that tangent... it depends somewhat on the display technology used for the panel. On an OLED / AMOLED / Super AMOLED display, every pixel generates its own light. Black pixels aren't lit at all, which saves a little bit of battery power. On LCD screens, the entire screen is always backlit, and black pixels must block the backlight from coming through. Some fancier LED backlit LCD TVs/Monitors have a matrix of LEDs for the backlight, and can individually darken/lighten regions (not pixels) of the screen making them somewhat more power efficient when large areas of the screen are dark. Contrast ratio does suffer within those darkened areas, however, since if a region's backlight is darkened, it can't display as bright a pixel in that region. Apple uses LCD (IPS) only. Samsung is the biggest innovator when it comes to AMOLED technology, and uses them almost exclusively in their phones/tablets. Other manufacturers have their own preferences, and some mix it up from device to device.

Slight tangent, all the white background is harder on battery life with a current mobile device. The more you can get your mobile device to not have to light up pixels, the longer your batt lasts between charges. For mobile, I try to control the background, if the site does not already options for a dark background. For mobile, the display is the one batt eater you have some control over.

You can also change the brightness and contrast on your monitor to make the whites whiter.

Firefox has a Reader View function built in. The icon looks like an open book. If you're on a page that it will work on, the icon will show in your URL bar (where the website address is). Also in Firefox, under Options, Content, Advanced, you can uncheck the box to allow pages to use their own fonts. Then pick whatever font and size you find easiest on the eyes.

All clients, can provide an actual 1095-A from the marketplace. In the past 3 months, at the firm, we have seen every excuse from clients that say "I can't get a copy." After standing our ground and saying "No 1095-A, no return," miraculously, all (approx. 20) people were able to produce the "can't get one" form from the Marketplace. Second, anyone receiving a1095-A cannot check the box proclaiming full year coverage on the back of the 1040. Depending upon the situation, anyone receiving a 1095-A must include Form 8962 ore 8965. No exceptions.