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Your work is saved when you close the return, but I highly recommend pressing Ctrl+S frequently when working on a return. I'm usually using one of the many Ctrl codes (mostly B), so I've gotten into the habit of pressing S first when I hold down the Ctrl key (Ctrl+S, B, Ctrl+S, E or Ctrl+S, P, etc.) Also, every time you close a return it creates a backup. I close periodically when working on big returns. (Ctrl+S, F4, O). Only takes a few seconds which I use to drink some water or walk down the hall to get rid of a glass of water I drank earlier. I've never lost more than about 2 minutes of work doing it this way, and even that is extremely rare, like once per tax season. And I stay hydrated!

http://www.cnbcprime.com/american-greed/ Watch this show this Thursday. I'm sure many of have seen this story over the last few years. He sued Mark Zuckerberg for 1/2 of the value of Facebook, claiming that he had an interest in it. He was charged for filing a fraudulent suit, and was supposed to return to court. During that time, he was to wear a tracking device. He lived here in Wellsville, NY where I work. He had hooked up a bunch of contraptions in his house to move the tracking device around, and he had lights turning on and off on timers. And he and his wife and kids left the area. Everyone thinks he is in Ireland, where his grandparents had been from. Many years ago when I first hung my shingle here, he came into the office and proceeded to tell me how he owned a satellite photography type business to take pictures of intersections for insurance companies, how he owned some other social website business (and he may have been talking about facebook then, but no one had heard of it yet) and how he owned our local movie theater. Then he proceeded to ask me to help him protest paying tax, and how tax was voluntary, and that whole thing. I told him that I was not interested in helping him. He then proceeded to make fun of my small office and berate my business and abilities. I then had asked another client what he knew about him and he told me about how his parents had scammed a bunch of people in town and filed bankruptcy and went to Ireland. To my knowledge he never owned the local movie theater, and I don't know anything about his photography business or his social website business. We never got to any business after he told me his intend of not paying tax. About 5 years ago, he was in the business of wood pellets. He "pre-sold" wood pellets to a number of people in Wellsville area for the tune of $200,000, and then never made good on delivery. Then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo charged him. http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-ceglia-allegany-pellets-sued-2010-7 I'll be interested in what else American Greed turned up on him.

The stress was unbelievable since it was a 1x per year test and you didn't find out your score for months! I'd never done another persons tax return before sitting for it and I'm not sure if that was helpful or harmful. My niece is taking the nursing boards this week - her freaking out about it reminded me of that test. The stress of having to admit to your co-workers and former students that you failed - wow. When I took the CFP exam - literally nobody except some co-students in a class I took even knew I was in the program.

That's not to say that I don't USE the Save feature. I have it set to every five minutes and I click on the Save button frequently. The precautions that I take are to bail me out in the event of a computer failure. I also do external backups of the entire system periodically. The backup program that I use also allows me to access ATX files directly. I feel fairly safe with the methods that I use for backup, export and security. Just because I have never had a crash, doesn't mean that I won't.

Your passing status is good for 2 years. If you have more than 5 years of experience and don't get stressed and overthink the questions, you will do just fine. The first time I took the tests was about 5 years ago. I took all 3 the same day. Passed 1 & 3 but flunked #2. Over the next 2 years I took #2 three more times to no avail. Then I put 1 entire year of intense study (Gleim) and a multitude of tax form classes to pass #2. This time I passed #2, then turned around and took the other 2. Glad it is behind me so I do not have to play the IRS's stupid games with "designations." I can help my clients with the IRS and anyone else that needs assistance now and the IRS must listen to me.

Catherine, After my wife passed away last September, I received a heartwarming letter from an Academy classmate of mine who also had been a member of our Wedding Party. I will quote part of his letter here, changing the names and gender. "It is hard to face the death of a loved one. And yet, it something we all must do, several time in our lifetime. It is part of the celebration of life. and every life must be celebrated. "Your job now is to take up Eric's ethics, his vision, his wisdom, his respectfulness, his energy and carry it forward as long as you can. It may seem that a library of knowledge and experience has been lost. Not true. Everyone who knew Eric carries that library forward. It is not lost. Memoria Semper / Always Remember" All of our hearts are with you, Catherine. Joel

So excited to SEE this. I think you are now Queen of the SEE and it doesn't even matter. Woo hoo, good for you, Debbie! I'm taking SEE1 first because I lack the moxie to do what you did. Thanks for posting this - very glad for you.

I took the SEE2 exam today. I've been studying for a couple months. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm trying to decide which one to try next. Any recommendations?

There is this awesome Facebook study group "IRS Exam Study Group" join it, best study group out there and it's free.

Took part 1 & 3, passed with minimal studying, failed part 2 by a couple of points again with minimal studying, I will be retaking it August. Don't be like me

I also passed part 2 first. Then 3 days later I took parts 1 & 3 the same day. I doubt you will have any trouble with either part. I would recommend that you print out and read (It is the most dull reading you will ever do) the newest version of Circular 230. There were some changes approx. 3-4 years ago. Just read through it, and go take the tests.

When I took the SEE you couldn't choose which part to take. It was a 2 day event, parts 1 and 2 one day, parts 3 and 4 the next. IRS gave you a pencil (no prometric in those days). After part 3, which I thought was unbelievably hard, I met one of the persons who took the same SEE prep course, he says to me "Joe, that wasn't a #2 pencil they gave us, it was a #2 dart!" Good luck to all of you taking the SEE.

You mean you back it up to a jump drive? As far as I know, the Save feature when in a return, just saves your changes to your main data drive.

I asked for an upgrade to Windows 95 for Christmas 1995, and my mom got it for me... And even though we had a CD-ROM drive, she got it on floppy. It came on 26 disks, I believe, and took FOREVER to install. Unfortunately for my mom and her Quickbooks files, I was never happy just to USE a computer, I had to tinker with it. So over the next few years, I did the DOS 6.22 installation (6 floppies) followed by the 26-disk upgrade to 95 roughly a dozen times after screwing up the system so bad I couldn't fix it without formatting the drive. I learned a lot from that tinkering, and my mom learned the importance of regular backups.

I also took Part 2 first. I had a lot of personal tax experience and almost zero business experience so I wanted it out of the way. I took part 1 next and it was a breeze. Part 3 was not bad either as long as you know the basics of Circular 230. Good luck to you.

My prayers are with you and your families. It will be 10 years since we lost our 27 year old son - drowning/fall. Be there to listen, let them talk of him, encourage them to bring up his name no matter how long of a time it has been. Find a group called The Compassionate Friends if you can near them - we started one and it has been an incredible help for us and others in the area - short term for some, longer for others. Even if they go on the website. Allan Wolfelt has good books on grief, find a good support grief. We asked ourselves and still do - " What would Jeremy want us to do? " Life does go on but it is a new normal... I am so sorry.

Oh, I forgot! They don't tell us the results immediately if we take an exam before Aug 14. (Psssshhh, you passed.)