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For the most part, we don't *have* to *imagine* it....

I simply cannot imagine becoming frustrated at tax time. Oh ! /s Just for you Gail.

Elrod, if you get bored, you can come help me. I have a guest room. Hubby cooks. I'll pay you to be my employee: tax preparer or researcher or court jester, your choice.

We need you during tax season more than ever. Drop by each day to cheer us up, relieve our stress, make us smile and laugh with you.

You all write such kind words.... I simply thought that since I retired, I was more of a nuisance to ya all. This time of year, as I well remember, is a very stressful time for income tax preparers, and I am with you all in spirit. After 38 years...I do not miss it. I will bop in from time to time and and hopefully leave a... Or two.... Bless you all... Elrod Thank you....FNDY, TAG, CATHERINE, CHRISTIAN, DANRVAN, GAIL, J.B., FRAZZLED, SFA, NECPA, MARGARET, SARAEA, and anyone else I have missed.

I can get tax advice anywhere - the hairdressers, the grocery store, you name it. People who make me laugh during tax season are MUCH harder to come by. So if you have the time and inclination, please don't go.

Not at all! Sometimes we can really use some cute graphics to lift our spirits, and you always find terrific ones.

Elrod, thanks for this and for continuing to be part of this group! We're so happy you couldn't stay away or leave us!

I gotta agree with Catherine. My experience with Drake so far??? Excellent and as it stands, if the rest of the season goes like it is now, then there will be no questions at renewal time.

You're one of the best Elrod....will be looking forward to seeing the wide eyed chimp bopping in on us again. Good luck in retirement, stay busy, healthy, and enjoy life my friend. Bill

COURT JESTER!.....WoW!..... Lion It would be a fantastic career move for me.....Can I bring my gitfiddle?

Hmmm, you might want to post that on the ATX blog site, see if you get a reaction.

Last night, TW, 2 hr. 10 min. on hold for a 3 min. fix that could only be done by them. The good news is that I'm cooking with grease, now.

Thanks Elrod that will do the trick.

Some of the IRS pages covering this were last updated on 1/10. I think we are going to have to wait for more official announcements and certainly will need program updates IF there will be some allowance made to not include the penalty on affected returns for 2016. At this point wouldn't our software generate an error message that would need recitfying before e-filing would be allowed? Sorry for all the posts. I'm on my tablet at the moment and making it harder to include all in one post.

Christian, I scoured the IRS site and search sites, with no success to a list....But, I hope this will help. How do I know if I was "disallowed" from claiming EIC in a previous year? In most cases, the IRS would have notified you in the year you were disallowed. You would have received a notice in the mail. In addition, the refund that you actually received from the IRS would have been significantly smaller than what was reported on the return that you filed. If you are unsure if you have been previously disallowed for EIC, you would need to contact the IRS at 1-800-829-1040 to find out. https://www.taxslayer.com/support/547/What-filing-status-should-I-choose You may like this also, to give to client...https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p4716esp.pdf

Below is a safe link to the White House official site of the actual executive order signed. Sec 2 is the part that pertains to the individual mandate and its penalty. It urges the regulatory agencies in charge of enforcing it to "waive, defer, delay" with the power at their means within the current law. I think this is a step in that direction, but my understanding at this point is that this officially butts up against the actual ACA laws, and ultimately will need the repeal/replace that is planned before this can be truly legally implemented, but that appears to be covered in Sec 5 that urge agencies to follow this order. Now the question is whether IRS will choose to not pursue the collection of the penalty and at this moment we don't have an answer to that, not at least one that I've seen. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/2/executive-order-minimizing-economic-burden-patient-protection-and

I always wait until February 6th, after I have all of my Monthly and Semi-Monthly Payroll Processing completed. Many thanks to all of the volunteer guinea pigs.

Thank You Bill...You knock those 1040's outta the park this year....Live long and prosper

Complicated for all sides. Neither the provider nor the customer (at least none I have run into) wants to pay or can afford to have enough techs to never have a busy signal or hold. Nor can the provider cannot force the customer to take advantage of the self help, which for me, is 80 to 90% of all contacts (meaning something already covered either in the program help, or something where the answer is being shown as part of the error/warning message). The fact is, those who do use self help subsidize those that do not (assuming there is no extra cost for support, or that some sort of support is free). If there is a complicated issue (meaning one for which there is no self help) then phone is less than ideal, and will likely be a negative for the provider. More often than not, the customer does not have all the needed information, or is not even at the computer. This means either waiting for the customer, or requiring a second call, neither of which the customer is happy about. If it is complicated or new, it is going to require investigation, and possibly some written information back and forth, to figure out. In my case, with the W2 due date change, my annual support rush is the last week of Dec and all January. This is made up primarily of those who did not order and install sooner (we start a new version every September 1) and need something instantly. Sometimes there is an issue with installation, 99% of the time, caused by not keeping their "security" software updated, and I promise you, is not something I have any control over... Then the last two weeks of January, with some leftover did not order earlier issues, but mostly W2 questions (still have many who do not realize you can print W2 forms on plain paper from approved software), and some who believe voluntarily efiling saves them time or money (the time taken to call is longer than it takes to print the forms on plain paper and stuff them in an envelope). I try to pre-solve these issues by sending out many emails this time of year, but some do not make it (full mailboxes, bad emails, etc.) and some think it is a sales pitch and ignore. Professional tax software is certainly a more specialized user base than my customers, so there are differences, but the principles remain the same. I hold my hand up to say I am not perfect, so software I create cannot be either. The difference is I have no problem owning that as fact, and dealing with it as fast as I can. Those who do test for me generally get their software for free, assuming they provide any feedback at all (most I never hear from). Not something I promise or advertise, as some will sign up thinking it is free software... and I do not want to repeat that fiasco again.

1:09 to be exact... and counting... this is crazy.

Nothing is going to change for at least a year. Just go forward with 2016 as planned.

It was my understanding (which may be totally wrong) that the under the law as passed the IRS could send letters demanding the penalty be paid, but enforcement/collection was limited to withholding refunds. I have seen clients who owed both tax and penalty get *two* letters - one for the tax portion, and a separate letter for the aca penalty portion. Perhaps they will simply stop sending the dunning letters as a cheap first step - and save us all the postage. What they do with refunds - Magic 8-Ball says "Answer hazy, ask again later"!

Historically I have seen LONG lag times for acks with e-filing W-2's and 1099's. It would be really nice to get them earlier so you know they are either done *or* there is a problem (in time to fix it). Have you tried synching with the e-file center? This early having to go back in and mark everything completed as complete should not be nearly as obnoxious a chore as it will be later.

Not sure if this was ever answered. Go to the Master 1040 Efile form and put an X in the No box, save the form. I love being able to change some of these things in the Master Forms.

Got my first Federal Ack this evening. Waiting for CA. Sent the return on Saturday. Tom Newark, CA

Drake answers in three rings (but not on Sunday, at all). If they need to investigate and get back to you, they do. Meanwhile, I am still waiting for the callback from ATX/CCH from Feb2013 that they promised within 48 hours. (No, that particular problem was never solved. After trying several more times, my final call was to Drake.)

From a webinar at CPAAcademy.com previously: A lot of information on "Nanny Taxes" and care givers can be found at: http://www.myhomepay.com/ and https://www.care.com/homepay/nanny-payroll-services

Yep - time to just kick back and wait it out. There is no company in the world that will stay in business by beefing up man power to what would be the peak time of their business and have that manpower sitting around on non-peak times looking at each other. I agree with the other posts. If more folks would use the knowledge library, the ATX news and any of the other communications that are out there from ATX, the calls to support would drop off dramatically. And if a call is mandated, FDNY's approach is the best. While we are at it, let me take this opportunity to thank all of you first out of the gate users. We will not begin preparing returns for another couple of weeks. By that time, you all should have all (or at least most) of the bugs worked out. Thanks for that!

Yep, problem solved. Permanently.

We started using a Client Contact Sheet last year and so far it's working okay. If a client calls with a simple question--what should I put on my W4--I don't bother filling it out (standard answer: Single, Zero). For questions that take more time--what will my tax be if I sell this building, if I sell that business, if I gift the building--we fill out the sheet and file it in the current year electronic file cabinet. In addition to recording the query and response, there's a place on the sheet for how long it took and what the charge should be. We add it to the tax prep fee. Interestingly, about half of my clients who take up 15 minutes of my time on the phone or come in for a brief meeting tell ME to charge them. Do I have great clients or what? (At least half of them.)