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This. It's a piece of paper. We've all done it. I can't wait to see what I did this season.

We have straight up corrupted you.

Oy! I have a lot to finish - mostly waiting on the TP, of course - but as of this afternoon I have at least started every return, which makes me feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't just a train.

Don't be so hard on yourself - it was just another piece of paper. It is a wonder that we all have systems in place that prevents this type thing happening on a regular basis. But I do understand your feelings - that punch in the gut feeling when you find you cannot blame the client for not giving you the info. But alas, you, me and the rest of us, are just mere humans - irrespective of what some of our clients think of us.

All of the Kids SS is going to support the kids, plus, Mom and Grandmom, since they don't make enough for themselves. Do not believe that the Father was ever married to the Mom. I see Single for the Mom. But she could still claim EIC on the boys at that point? That is like, wow... And yes, there are alarm bells at the IRS. Mainly for lunch hour... Rich

My Tax Season Written by Willie Maykitt Illustrations by Betty Doant

Dadgummed 426,000 in sales proceeds on 24 short term transactions with a whopping $926 collective gain. There's that advisory fee on page 23.

1 return in house with 3 days to go!

Don't be so hard on yourself Bulldog, it happens to all of us. You fixed it. Pay any added costs. Give him a free return next year, if he's understanding with your explanation he'll stay with you, especially if he knows how good you are. I've been there and have lost sleep, how could I miss that, but the next day I get over it because I addressed the problem immediately. Too bad it wasn't for 2012, you could have blamed ATX.

We're all human and make mistakes. There was only one perfect human, and we crucified him. You owned your mistake, and that's the human thing to do. Then, forgive yourself. But, yeah, it really hurts. Been there; done that. We still respect your work, under deadlines and pressure and lack of sleep and almost perfection. When college visiting with my son, I saw a poster on a professor's door: Strive for excellence, not perfection. So true for so many reasons. And, you, Tom, are excellent.

Price of being human... Mistakes are the best learning tool, those that never admit, find, realize they happen, are not those I want to work with.

Happens to me at least one a week

Alas, we all are human and do make mistakes. And the longer we are in the field the higher the risk of one happening. I also suspect that most of us here prepare rather complicated returns (otherwise clients might use TT) and often under the most trying of circumstances. It is additionally challenging when, like me, we are sole practitioners. We try very hard to do and review the best we can. But it is also incumbent on the taxpayer to review the returns before they sign. How could that client miss this without questioning? This is also why we have insurance. And, frankly, I do offer to pay any penalties - not tax - for any errors I make. To date I've been fortunate to pay just $25 or so, a credit on the following year returns. We support you.

I believe you have it exactly right, and yes, it's a big wow, and I bet you remember that Eagles' song "Lunch Will Keep Us Alive". Bacon. We need a bacon per diem.

Tom, Stuff happens, the only people that are mistake free are six feet under ground. A motivational speaker that I listened to years ago said, "I give myself 10 mistakes a day and if I don't use them all I carry them forward to the next day." The only way forward is to say, If I make a mistake, I will fix it and make right to the best of my ability."

Uh, that looks dangerously close to my present situation. Not quite, but close.

I feel awful today. Client sends me a notice he got from the IRS asking for taxes of 100K and penalties and interest of 25K on the 2016 return I prepared for his trust. So I go through the letter, and there is a 1099B that was not included in the return that I filed for the client. Had a quarter million in trades on it. So I go looking through the documents the client provided to me. And sure enough, it is in the file. I totally missed the form when I prepared the return. How in the F do you miss a quarter million dollars in trades! The client should fire me. This is totally unacceptable behavior from a supposed professional preparer. I suck. Of course, I have prepared the amended returns and the IRS did not take the basis into consideration, nor did they see the two other trades on the 1099B that produced a loss, so the impact is no where near the bill they sent. But it still does not excuse me for my crappy work. I have no idea how I missed that trade when I filed the return. This is one of the pitfalls of not being in a firm where you have someone checking your work. I don't make a lot of mistakes, but damn, this is a doosy. A QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS! Rita, I give you permission to hug me and put me in the back 40. Tom Modesto, CA

"don't laugh, they're in alphabetical order!" That would make me laugh!

I'm definitely setting a record for number of returns done by 4/17 this year! I'm close to the record now. All have been entered by my staff but some are missing documents and no way we're bugging them. Ball's in their court.

I sort through the paperwork and separate out the crap from data entry work. Then, I arrange the work papers according to my input screens. Then, I enter it all. Then, it goes in a To Review pile. Then, I review it the next day. This has worked for all of the years I’ve done it this way. That one I made the big error on was because the client was waiting and had to rush out to catch a plane for their vacation. Never let that happen again.

As a one man shop I'm always fearful of missing something so I developed my triple check procedure that works really well. I sort everything and after inputting each item I highlight each one. Then I go back to beginning and check each item and put a check mark next to it. Close it up and go back to it in the morning for final review of each item again that only takes a few minutes depending on size of the return. I also look at the back of each page. I have a situation now that is my fault. My assistant (wife) assembles the return and checks mailing label against address on return. This particular client usually is in Florida for the winter but not this year. I forgot to tell my assistant that she was in NY. Client calls, where's my return? Oh ship, I bet it went to FL, sure enough the NY label was still there. So I explained to client and she was OK with it, I got another package out to her. But now I am worried that the original may not be returned to me and I'm of course worried about ID theft (NY returns have date of birth on them). Because the tenant in the condo in FL is unknown to me, could be a drug addict or something, my mind wandered that I said to myself, hold on, you're not in control right now so why think the worst, could be no problem. I just wish the PO was faster in returning undeliverable mail. They take over a month.

One of my new clients this season had activity such that looks like the advisor is churning the account. $1.6 million in proceeds for $25K in short-term gains and $14K in ordinary dividends. Investment fees were $20K. 32 pages of activity to split between PY states because he relocated, and then he got a corrected 1099! Such fun, NOT!

One thing about that Almay photo site, they are not practicing any diversity.... More pictures of dogs with glasses than folks of color... Rich

Tom: You are not Crap. Ship happens. Maybe the client fires you. Maybe they don't. I tell folks I get hired and fired everyday. I can not control all of that. We all have to adopt procedures to make sure things like this do not happen. If you are a one person shop, then you procedures might be different than someplace with a number of employee's. This is one of the reasons I will not input with the client here. I take the info, sort it, and let someone else input it, so that two sets of eyes look at every return. Does not mean that mistakes will not happen, but it reduces the missed document errors quite a lot. If it is just you, do the work, and then set it aside and come back to it the next day. Rich ,

Who is bringing the bacon to the Rita's Bash??? Rich

Haha, if you only really knew me in person, and even then, some get the wrong impression and try to behave around me. If they could only hear how I can cuss like a sailor when I get mad. Bacon would make me happy too.

I'm sorry it happened, Tom, but please don't beat yourself up over this. Even with the best practices in place, we are humans working under pressure and all of us make mistakes.

Bacon would help me think. Or, at least, it would make me happier.

... and the client should have some skin in this. He/she signed it as a complete and accurate return classic example of client signing without even giving it a look. With even a cursory exam, you'd think he would have noted: Hey! what about all of that investment activity???

Yea, how come the beautician down the street is smarter than me and cuts hair for a living???

My most amazing client story is that of an almost 30 y/0 son of a deceased doctor. His dad had set up trust funds for the TP, overseen by the TP's uncle. Trust terminated last year and TP now in charge of managing his $. His tax docs , received last week, reflected IRA distiprivutioms, code 4, of about $200,000 and not one dime of withholding. I asked him what was he thinking tomwhich he replied he didn't consult with his mom because his uncle had already tried to talk him out of withdrawing the $. He never thought to call me beforehand. He now works as a police officer in a small podunk louisiana town.

after the 4th call today and rehanging several efiles both on my side and atx's side. doing the same thing over and over again - i just clicked receive acks - and it started to rain ACKS!!! I feel so much better and basically they had no explanation what was fixed or why it just started working....thanks for the input.

I slip the easy ones in whenever I have half an hour until going home or lunch, etc.

Those aren't garbage cans. They're file storage!

I had to go back and look at that. Must be his filing system. I had a mortgage broker client who during busy times would have tons of client file folders all over the floor. I looked at them in amazement and he said to me, don't laugh, they're in alphabetical order!

We all screw up sometimes, and clients usually understand because they screw up too! If you have decent relationship with them, they shouldn't fire you. I made a costly mistake on a business sale one time, oy, that was a nightmare. This year I had a new guy come in, one of those that enjoys trading. Lots of 1099s, some K1s I think, big stack of paper. I was so paranoid about checking everything multiple times to be sure i didn't miss anything, and in the end he took the finished return back to do it himself in TurboTax (as he had in previous years). He said I missed something, but I don't think so; from the questions he asked I think he just wanted to learn more about how to do it himself. Paid me my whole fee, so no whatever. I had a feeling about him.

You mean you thought you were wrong, but were mistaken?

I remember that time I made a mistake. Should be a whistling in the wind emoticon.

Except for maybe a dozen times per year, my desk is clean when I leave at night. A cluttered office is a cluttered mind. I WILL have 4-5 boxes on the floor but they are temporary filing cabinets.

I left a zero off an IRA distribution once. That cost me around $1,200 in penalties. Ew.

I am working on perfection, but it is still a long way off. The only advice I can give you is to look at what happened and try to come up with a way to prevent this particular mistake from happening again. If you are the only one in the office you can;t have someone else check behind you, but can you look over returns a second time several hours after they are prepared? Or list all the documents when they are brought in, and then check them off by comparing to the return? Or something more brilliant I did not think of? I have someone in the office to check on my work, and believe me that is a very good thing! Especially this late in the year. Even with all that, mistakes occasionally go out the door and I totally agree with rfasset - it feels like a punch in the gut!

I'll save you the journey. I've worked with people like this!

We had to prepare a short form in high school personal finance. I still remember so much from that class. My son did not have anything that taught him common sense in high school or college. He learned a lot, but I am still trying to teach him to shop sales, use coupons and have a budget. I have so many "kids" in their 30s that have their parents bring in their taxes to be prepared.

These stories make me think their parents made things too easy for them growing up. I remember asking my Dad to help me fill out my taxes when I was in college and he said sure, here's my copy of Pub 17, read what applies to you and you're good to go. I liked reading it because there were nice stories of examples that I found interesting. The rest is history.

Firefox has a setting to clear the cache when you close it. Chrome buries it in advanced settings an you have to manually clear browsing data. I run CCleaner to clear all system temp and cache files, and unwanted cookies. You do want to keep a lot of cookies for sites you frequent. If you install CCleaner go to Options, Advanced and uncheck 'Only delete file in Windows Temp folder older than 24 hours'. Then set it run when you start your computer.

I've had maybe a dozen who are significantly better or worse, for most it makes very little difference. For us, the big problem is what will happen with the state. MN starts with the federal taxable income and goes from there, but if they choose to conform to all the federal changes, most Minnesotans will see big jumps in state tax. So they may choose to conform, but lower all the brackets, or not conform and design a new system. Session ends in May, but they've done precious little so far. So much fun trying to do estimated taxes for people with no clue what our tax system will look like in a couple months.

Over the last few days as we come to the end of tax season, after the following instances happened over the last week, I have realized that sometimes we are unwittingly surrogate parents to some of our younger clients. I called one of my Ivy League graduates whose return I completed nearly 2 months ago asking if she forgot about me, she has a nice refund coming. She said no, but has no checks to pay me and she's too cheap to get new ones and if I would take PayPal. Sorry, no, why don't you use Bill Pay from your bank or brokerage account? She never thought of that. The second happens to be her brother, another Ivy Leaguer going to law school on a scholarship. He emailed to tell me he wasn't filing this year because he learned in law school that he didn't make enough to file. I said good, how much did you make? $8,000 for consulting work with at risk kids. Did you get a 1099Misc? Oh yes, it says I was a non employee. You know the rest of the story. The 3rd one is an actuary, I admire her as it is a profession I once aspired to. I mailed her return last week and a few days ago I get an email from her that she is sorry but forgot to tell me she moved. I said I already mailed it and it would take a month for the PO to forward it. She owes money to one of 4 states she worked in so I sent her an encrypted copy with instructions to beat the deadline, I wanted her to get it in because she is struggling and has a big federal refund. I worry about her. I'm sure many of you have seen these things happen with your younger clients, they do know to call you during the year for guidance, because their real parents told them to when questions arise. Something they can't do with the big box preparers. My being independent lends to being receptive to them and because their parents are longtime clients. They will keep me in business for the rest of my life if I decide to continue working. Each one of these made me smile, I remember being young once, too bad I did my own taxes. I could have used the help. Take care of your kids.

That picture has so many things to comment on, but my personal favorite is the partially-full garbage can inside another partially-full garbage can. I'm going to do one of those in my office just for the comic effect. Will see if anyone notices when they come in.

Oh, were Mom and Father still married? Then, MFJ might be the way to go. I assumed they were divorced. I also hate EIC returns, but I don't think there are any alarm bells at IRS.

Yeah, I did one this morning where the fed tax was 350 less but the state tax was 650 more. This mostly happens when they switch from itemizing to standard, because the state standard deduction is low. MD raised it a little bit, but decided to keep about 2/3 of the windfall the new tax law was creating.