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More and more documents are not being sent to clients, except via electronic means. Seems like no one wants to go to the trouble to print out, stuff, and pay postage. If this causes problems for anyone else, they don't care. The rest of us are told to "move into the 21st century electronic age - this is the new world." God forbid they should print these out so I can look at them. I'm getting so sick and tired of clients scrolling through 350 pages of telephone messages to find 1098s and 1099s, inquiring at a website and having to ask the wife if she remembers the password, and having to look at a screen with partial information. Had a new return tonight and spent three hours with them. This could have been completed in half the time. I billed them for the full 3 hours, much of which was spent waiting on them to dig up information from electronic sources. They didn't have the first document, not even their W-2s. I told them how to save on my hourly fee next year. I'm so sick of this I've decided not to give breaks on my time.

AND --- make sure (or disable) Rita does NOT have a big or walk in freezer (or a lot of extra tarps). Maybe check neighbors too, as they might "hold" things for her.

Uh, some advance planning - we need a volunteer to drain the gas out of Rita's backhoe ahead of time. Sounds like fun though. I'd be there if I could.

There's a lot of anger on that official board. Not like the informative and professional environment we've established here!!! <cough>

I cannot stand getting a text message with a photo of a tax document. My phone is for talking, not for tax prep. But they all think they are so smart that they saved "their" time by sending me something I have a hard time reading on a 27" monitor, let alone a 3" phone screen. Rant over. Tom Modesto, CA

All the good stuff in windows is in the right-click menus.

Alright, but if I hear banjos, I'm running!

Aww, my grandmother used to make apple butter. And, as far as that photo of the body, I prefer a death certificate.

Edsel...I feel the same. I'm all for trying to keep my fee "reasonable." With that said, if the client chooses to give me a shoe box, or if they do not provide information in a readable and useable format, then my time is billed accordingly.

People are not self sufficient and just want ATX to hold their hand and make everything ok whenever something goes wrong. When all they need to do is search the forums. Of course, 90% of them suck at computers so when you tell them to clear the windows temp folder, they have no clue. I hope they all switch to Drake. ATX isn't making any money off them if they're tying up support every day.

But, they email me that photo in the body of the email and not as an attachment that I could work with. I can see only part of the page. Even an older woman who used to give me a cloth bag full of originals now snaps a photo on her phone and puts it in the body of an email to me. A new email for every page!

Next time send them packing, I once made a mistake letting a former tax client use my computer to access their files, didn't remember the login info, wanted to call tech support etc... Now I say no.

Abby Normal...totally agree. ATX makes you pay for credit for taxes paid calculation. I don't see how that is not included as part of the normal program.

Really, I think we all have efficient and inefficient clients. Some will be organized and concise no matter what format the data is in, and some can't organize their way out of a paper-bag no matter how much help and instruction we give them. I like technology, but given a choice I will take an organized client with paper copies over an electronic copies sent by the organizationally impaired any day.

Lion, do you have a microphone that would convert voice to text? At least that might be easier and less time consuming. My fat fingered husband has trouble hitting the correct letters on his phone so he uses it for his texting, then goes back to make minor corrections where it misinterprets his words. OK, so I went back and looked at this client's stored data. In addition to the multitude of actual documents and summaries she supplied, after printing out and highlighting emails to glean out the data needed for the return out from all of the other questions and answers she required, I had 7+ full pages of email correspondence that I saved. That was after eliminating the extraneous stuff. I just gave myself a headache revisiting all of it again. Ugh, just doesn't seem overly efficient to me!

I have a new client just like that, a young guy. I'm so tired of typing explanations on my phone. I have repeatedly asked him for an email address, so I can type on my keyboard. He only texts. He's married to the one earlier that sent her documents via Facebook Messenger pictures. I love email and hate telephone and office visits, but texting is becoming too time consuming.

I'm on board with the notion of keeping the clients out of the office and off the phone as much as possible and I *mostly* embrace the technology to do that. That being said, I have one client that thinks of emailing and texting as extended chat sessions and as a replacement to a sit-down meeting, expecting very detailed answers to her questions about how the tax law applies to her situations and variety of deductions, and will 20-question me to death...one question at a time. She got offended when I suggested that for expediency and efficiency, that I would appreciate if she could group all/most of her questions into fewer emails. Honestly, it was so annoying that I considered dropping her as a client because answering to her satisfaction was like teaching a course on tax preparation. All of that doesn't include the initial emails to send me documents and follow up email from her where I've requested missing information! Then she questioned my fee after having to wade through, organize, and e-store the 2 dozen or so emails to properly document all that was said. She made all of that even more difficult because she didn't keep a good flow of responding to the emails because she'd click reply to an earlier email after others of hers had come in and contained more information. Maybe ^ this client is the exception, but this was so ridiculous that I found it to be a very inefficient way to gather all of her data and review my tax prep work. My review of returns is a very thorough process, and I was particularly worried that I'd missed including some piece of data on her returns.

I am a long-time member of the TTB board, and it was maintained by great people for long time. TTB is a great family-owned company and I buy their products every year. In the last couple years, some of the new people are downright rude, ugly, and hateful with their responses. Many of the favorite people on this forum are refugees from TTB and are now free from the scowls and sarcastic statements that happen over there. The TTB board has rules about personal attacks, but the remarks are so truncated and generic that really nothing can be done with them. I hope none of those people find out about this board. If so, I would support getting rid of them.

Speaking of texts, I sometimes have clients tell me, I sent you a text and you never responded, I am like really, as far I as know you are calling me on a landline.

We (reluctantly) agreed to do someone else's W2s this year. I suggested they send me a back up of QuickBooks. instead they created a PDF report of the employee earnings summary. Apparently that means it goes to 1 page no matter how much information is on the report. I had to blow it up to 600% to be able to read the information. Why won't people send the information in the format that you ask for?

You should be able to right click and save photo to drive. I use Thunderbird and photos show inline but also as attachment. I keep forgetting I'm not on the official board and I don't have to keep my sentences short. Sorry if I sound Russian!

Well, I first read that as "but, they email me that photo of the body..." Yesterday was brutal, y'all. I did hug a couple people, but they were sweet little ladies and one brought apple butter. I swear.

I hate the ones who download a landscape brokerage 1099 and print it in portrait mode so it's tiny. How can they think that's acceptable?! If they email them to me, it saves me time because I don't have to scan them, and they're already searchable documents, so I can copy/paste if needed. Social Security numbers are masked almost universally now, but I encourage them to use Virtru or bring them to me on a flash drive. The ones I really hate are the ones who scan every document as a separate file. If they use Virtru I have to download each document separately, then merge them into one PDF. I'd rather have a photo than the scan I had last week. They used some Apple jotnot scanner and it looked worse than a bad fax from the 80s. The tiny font used by the bank made it almost impossible to tell a 6 from an 8.

I hate the smartphone pictures. Shadows. Only part of the document shows in the email they send me. And, it has all the folds and creases and is at a weird angle. I have to contact them to find out what's in the other boxes. Not to mention that I suggest they NOT use email but use the portal I provide them or fax. I used to send semi-retired hubby to pick up from some of my elderly clients who don't drive in winter weather and are not computer savvy, but now it's the young texters that I send him after to get real paper copies instead of those poor pictures.

I once had the heart-warming experience of listening to one side of a two-part phone conversation between a mom in my office and her no-account, unemployed, live-at-home slacker kid back at the house. No problem about claiming himself 'cause Mom (who handled all obligations) hadn't filed it for him yet. I figured his deduction was worth about $150 to him (mowed some yards) and $800 to Mom; she insisted she would "pay him back" the $150. The back and forth went on for a bit until Mom suddenly stopped short and, overcome with frustration, blurted out "Raymond; I am not ripping you off!" Surely there must be justice waiting somewhere, someday............

I went over the bookkeeper's head and got the information, but really.

It's ridiculous. And the correct answer can be post #3 and the same old ones will think of all the 0.03% possibilities and confuse every issue out the wazoo. There will be fifteen posts below the one helpful post where the fat heads argue with each other. I once suggested a "like" button so we could at least help people know what to research further. A fat head told me it wasn't a popularity contest. Uh...

Oh no, you keep them over at ATX! Those are some of the *cough* (not) preparers that also NEED forms-based entry as a crutch and would tie up Drake's tech support when they can't figure out the entries because of their own shortcomings.

Why is everybody so mean on the official board? And on TheTaxbook? OK, not everybody, but the hateful people post soooooo much...

I would have refused to do the W2s without the QB backup.

I've had multiple text and email message with a client. We were waiting on her mortgage statement as we discussed that her refund was cut by 75%. Told her yesterday afternoon that I'd have the return completed last night. This morning she informs me she made charitable contributions of $150 and needs it on the return. You couldn't tell me that at any time over the last week?

I think most of us do, but it easy to forget about qualifying for the eic and other things, unless you have a long check list. I use the ATX check list in the 1040.

Oh man. Don't abbreviate Lifetime Learning Credit as LLC. I had to read that sentence twice!

Absolutely. Rabbit trail entry: There was a preparer on FaceBook who thought you could use LLC only once in your lifetime.

I'm game, and will endeavor to protect anyone who feels unsafe!

I had the same situation as Max, was going on since November, then I got bumped up to a tech specialist that they said would email or call me. EServices finally did call after a week and I was able to renew over the phone with the agent. She said they are swamped with these problems with the new system. Hang in there Max, I think someone will call, any day now.

I'm with John. If a client can text or email - they are my preferred client. I HATE sitting on the phone for 20 minutes hearing about their last surgery. Have a client who is in the process of dying right now but for the last 10 years if he called and I asked "how's it going" his immediate response was "do you have an hour?" He was somewhat joking but if you let him he'd talk for an hour about his problems. Always had to keep him on track or he'd go off about politics or his hip or how horrible his kids are.....

To each his own, but I really appreciate clients who use technology. I've been pushing them in this direction for years and it has paid off. If a texted or scanned document is too small, it's usually fairly easy to blow it up. If the blown-up version loses too much clarity, I tell them to send it again at higher resolution. But that's a rarity. I return phone messages in a day or two, emails within a few hours, and texts instantly unless I'm really occupied. So that alone encourages them to text me or email me because they know how to get the fastest reponse. If someone leaves a message on my voice mail but I have their email or cell phone, I'll reply with a text or email most times. Email and text keeps the clients off my phone and out of my office, which means I have more time to get work done (and send invoices - that is what we are in business to do). What I find fascinating is how quickly many of my older (especially retired) clients have adopted technology in recent years - most of them routinely communicate with me by text. For the most part, only the very old ones (80+) are out of the loop technologically these days.

So, as we're talking about electronic documents and I'm struggling with tech support at my church's bank (I'm assistant treasurer and was paying bills online when I was caught in a loop) a Facebook Message popped up with a picture of a bank statement with a deposit from the IRS and a picture of a check to CT. Now I need to learn yet one more new skill during tax season to do something with those tiny pictures so I can see them, save the, anything!

I can't speak for the official ATX board, but TTB is like some of those people are protective of their own little internet kingdom even when others give correct answers, or God forbid correct them when they are wrong.

Trying the right click now. Still shows only what was in the body of the text, can't read what's not there. But, I can save it in the client's folder in my computer now.

They should have talked to Boothby. He's the smart gardener.

Before anyone else expends more time with answers, please note that this revived topic was started 10 months ago.

The NOL worksheet is rarely right. Credit for taxes paid to other states is not automated unless you pay for Advantage. (This is just wrong)

Many of these problems are also caused by people not READING what's on the screen. They just click away. And then they never LOOK at the completed return to see if it makes sense. I had one this season where the parents efiled the child's return and never realized they allowed her to claim herself. Couldn't even blame the kid in this case. I told them there's a reason we only charge $50 for dependents' returns--so this kind of mess doesn't happen. Now they can wait 3 months for their refund from their paper return, and they had to pay me to amend the child's and re-do their returns. Bet they don't try that again.

Many of the problems I see with self-prepared returns are because the taxpayer knows so little that they don't know what they don't know and therefore don't attempt to look it up.

I use google voice as a text to email system. I can reply to all emails (even the text to email) via desktop keyboard, phone keyboard, or more often than not (since it is MUCH faster) voice response using my phone... Cuts my time creating replies by a large percentage.

Printing to PDF as an intermediate step solves the printing problem. Printing problem when printing to printers may be caused by that crap software printers want to install. I never install those types of programs. I just let windows find the driver, or find it myself when installing a printer.

We send our children to school to learn terrific geometry problems, and solve horrific stats problems. We make sure they take sciences that they are not interested in, fill their calendar with Spanish classes they will never use, and make sure they have at least 2 "arts" to graduate, or something dumb like that. But no one teaches a child about basic cooking skills, how to keep a checkbook, what interest on credit cards looks like, the implications of student loans, and especially income tax and how to fill out a W4. It is a huge problem in our schools, and we continue to ignore basic stuff in lieu of math - that personally I cannot figure out why they need it these days after they learn the basics! We have computers! I've done a few amends myself. Grumble mumble...grumble mumble.....It's been a very long week.