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I hit golf balls because the golf season has officially begun.

My assistant and I went for a doubles massage. My neighbor brought us a little bottle of champagne, so we had some bubbly before going. This gal, Cynthia, has become like a daughter to me. With no job and no plans for a career, I took her under my wing last year. She was even better this year. I'm helping her study for her EA (even though I have no plans for my own) so she can plan her future in taxes. Personally, this has been the most peaceful, joy-filled, and productive tax season in my life. Thank you for all your assistance, all your laughs, and for being my extended office. This is my safe place, right here. What a difference this site makes in my business and my spirit. Saturday, I begin HORSEBACK RIDING LESSONS. Yes, 62 this month, and I'm finally able to fulfill a dream of mine. I am going to a Christian camp so that if I fall off the horse and "wake up dead," they know how to pray me UP! AMEN? I'm a very blessed woman! Thanks, and God Bless y'all.

I took my staff to dinner at a local restaurant. We ate, drank and laughed for two hours. My receptionist had her baby on April 12th, so we had a 5 day old baby boy at the table with us. My wife and I will relax at home tonight. Rich

Same as Rich, took staff and family to dinner at this great little Italian place in town. One good thing about tax season ending on a Tuesday is we almost had the restaurant to ourselves. I'm sure the restaurant and wait staff appreciated our business too.

Made myself scrambled eggs since i make the best scrambled eggs ever

My son (my assistant) and I went out for Japanese . He had sushi and I had hibachi shrimp and broccoli.

What did YOU do to celebrate the end of tax season? Sleep? Eat? Drink? All of the above? My husband and I are going out in about a half hour, to get me a hot fudge sundae. That's my celebration.

I was supposed to meet with other preparer friends for drinks, my daughter calls me that she needs shoes for our vacation (starts today) and I had to cancel on them. But I did have a drink and my daughter had ice cream.

Well I hope you have a great time and enjoy that sundae. My wife and I are being so elaborate, we are just spending a much needed evening together. Now that I have all the scoop on the IRS outage it is time to shut this thing off. Enjoy!!!

Headed out early this morning to my getaway in the country. Arrived at 5 am and it was snowing! It stopped at about 7 and I cleaned up all the downed branches and fixed the plow damage. I loved it, no thinking and my back aches but it feels so good. Got a haircut and a great lunch with a friend in my favorite Greek restaurant, ate and drank with a smile knowing I'm done. Just got back and this is the first place I went to check. Glad to see everyone is having a good time. I'll be in bed early....very early. Best to everyone, you did good, we should all be proud of ourselves.

Want your invoice to go up? Make that statement to me.... Bingo. Higher fee. Sure, shake your box, it knows the answer for you. Rich

We just stayed home and watched some tv. Tomorrow, we will go somewhere, because I haven't left the place in almost two weeks. I don't want to splurge and eat something bad for me until after my physical on Friday.

I had a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter filling late afternoon and then tried to take a nap. Wrong order, the sugar and chocolate had me wired and I barely drifted off. I'm feeling tired but not too beat up.

The sundae was great! Enjoy your time with your wife.

So yesterday afternoon I called @Possi to see if they survived, and they were DRINKING AND HAVING MASSAGES. Wait, what? I thought I was your best friend, not Cynthia. I see how it is. Then I went home, had five little candy bars, and whoever named them "Fun Size" clearly did not understand fun. Then I hiked around the farm smiling and enjoying the sun, thankful for a good season. Discovered a new baby calf, which is always like Christmas morning to me. Thanks to all of y'all for everything you do for me. And everybody please stick around because I need you all year.

My son is learning baseball umpiring. I have been calling about 5 years. First scheduled game for me tonight and his first base calling tonight. Should be fun. At least I can toss you out if I don't like you.

My husband said that this was the smoothest end of tax season that he has seen in our 28 years together. I'm not sure what I did differently, but I hope that I can keep it up. I did start using him earlier in the season as my receptionist for signing so that I could work harder without all of the distractions.

I never found out how they knew, but they were wrong. He had not claimed himself. They faced signature pages to my office for him to sign and return. The VA return was wrong, so I walked the preparer through it. TaDAY. This has been my best text season ever. I have this website, Rita, and a great assistant who handles all my problem clients with kid gloves! I am counting my blessings tonight! And I’m not talking about the number of returns or the dollars coming in. I’m talking about a peaceful, joyful spirit! That’s all that matters to me.

I could work harder and later tonight, but I have everything done that I had promised and am actually in a good mood for the first last day of tax season in many years! I owe a lot of that happiness and sanity to the amazing people on this site. I think it's partly age, I've finally learned that I don't have to let the stress kill me and make me miserable. I have prepared more returns by now than the last four years and am so relieved. I have a lot of extensions, but none that were not expecting it. I won't take tomorrow off, because I do want to wrap up a few returns and start on payroll and property tax returns. I have a ton of work to get done and so much planning for our London trip by 4/29. I am sure that I will renew sometime with ATX for next year, because I had a good year and I'm too old to want to learn new stuff. Thanks to all of you for the humor, the acceptance and the new stuff that I learn here every day. I hope that everyone has a great summer and peaks in here once in awhile, because I will still be here all year. Now I'm going to try to take a nap! Bonnie

This was a challenging year but I'm so very happy to have the opportunity to ask questions and seek advice from the group of professionals on this forum. It makes the year much more bearable and I truly appreciate having the opportunity to learn so much from each of you. Have a good "off season!"

This is only the beginning! The day after tax season ends feels like the start of a new year.

Yesterday was every died-in-the-wool procrastinator's dream. It doesn't get much better than this. First the 15th falls on a weekend. Then the filing date gets pushed to Tuesday because of a holiday in only one city. THEN, literally at the last minute IRS extends another day. I wonder how many people heard the news, put their taxes aside last night, and will be rushing to meet the deadline today? It's just a way of life for some people. I was already waiting for my biggest procrastinator to call me and complain because I erroneously told him to pay his payroll tax deposit through EFTPS by 8pm last Friday Apr 13th (I discovered on Friday that he actually had until 8pm Apr 16th but I didn't change my instructions to him). I'm sure he will hear about all this and start griping because I had him violate his principle of "not giving the money to those thieves until the last minute" . It doesn't affect him, but all this extra publicity about extended due dates may make him take notice...

I'd like to see how that excuse would fly in the eyes of the IRS and circular 230. I get upset with that type of lame response too. Trusting the software to do its thing is not a good idea. Many programs are good. Drake is good but I still do manual calculations for verification purposes if something doesn't seem or feel right. I couldn't do that if all I did was input.

Since the title of this thread is "NEXT YEAR", here's a suggestion. Next year do this -> set a cutoff date not later than Mar 20. Anything coming in on or after that date AUTOMATICALLY goes on extension. No exceptions, no excuses, no caving in. If you have time to circle back to some of them before the 15th, then the extension did no harm. If you don't get back to them for any reason (you got sick, decided to take a few days off, computer crashed, kids/spouse/pet got sick, don't like the client's attitude, whatever...), then there won't be any last day surprises. You remain in charge and you're not subject to the whims of a flaky client or any of the other surprises that jump up at the last minute. Your blood pressure will thank you, and you might even live longer.

Why limit yourself? Do both!

See you in June when you'll really need help!

I found the top of my desk today and the missing choc bar.

Ohio announced they are honoring 04.18.18.

Blaming the software WILL NOT STAND during audit.

Not sure whether to cry in relief or frustration. >_<

2017 tax season has 2 last days.

Don't forget to inquire of foreign accounts for possible FBAR filing for 2018.

Catherine, you are supposed to be enjoying a hot fudge sundae, I believe. Are is that already a memory of the past? I'm muddling with a couple of simple extensions waiting for my husband to return from yoga so we can have dinner. With wine, of course!

Remember when we posted pictures of our desks? She had a London travel blog (that I later bookmarked!) up on her monitor. (If I recall correctly.)

London! Wow! Enjoy every minute as you clearly deserve it.

Earlier this afternoon, NAEA alerted members to technical difficulties with IRS' electronic filing and online payment systems. NAEA confirmed with IRS earlier this evening that these systems are fixed and are operational again. According to the Service: Individuals and businesses with a filing or payment due date of April 17 will now have until midnight on Wednesday, April 18. Taxpayers do not need to do anything to receive this extra time. More details are available in IRS' news release, IR-2018-100. Should new information become available, NAEA will update the full membership.

Earlier this afternoon, NAEA alerted members to technical difficulties with IRS' electronic filing and online payment systems. NAEA confirmed with IRS earlier this evening that these systems are fixed and are operational again. According to the Service: Individuals and businesses with a filing or payment due date of April 17 will now have until midnight on Wednesday, April 18. Taxpayers do not need to do anything to receive this extra time. More details are available in IRS' news release, IR-2018-100. Should new information become available, NAEA will update the full membership.

I heard it was mostly TurboTax filers & Block. If intuit probably their pro software too. I just heard about the extended due date...ugh. Well have more time to do my own extension

Because you knew from experience.. You were our canary in the mine!

The Internal Revenue Service late Tuesday extended its tax-filing deadline for one day, after a glitch knocked out the IRS website for much of the day, the Wall Street Journal reported. Acting IRS Commissioner David Kautner apologized for the outage late Tuesday. The problem was apparently a hardware failure, and not a cyberattack, officials said. Earlier in the day, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said those who were blocked from the IRS site would get tax extensions.

In the same file. Is that the reason you are having efile problems? You are creating a return with just the 568 in it? Tom Modesto, CA

My postage receipt is marked 4:57. This is the most last minute I have ever been. Had a guy with a NYS corp that owed a franchise fee and because he has a history with NY I wanted to pay by money order and not give NY any banking info. this day has been crazy! I can't believe how many last minute people have been in!!

That was probably me, here in the home of Romneycare.

Are accountants/experienced tax preparers the only that get upset when someone's says "I just input the numbers and the software does everything"? I get pretty upset if a client tells me that (just input the numbers), honest truth.

amen

This week a client whose wife died in January got a refund check made out to her. This happened in our office once before, and that time the IRS was quick to issue a new check. This time the client called IRS and was told that the preparer messed up. Excuse me, the return clearly shows the wife's date of death and has "filing as surviving spouse" in her signature area. It was efiled, so why don't they blame the computer? Looks like the reduced money IRS has for training is taking its toll. I feel so bad for these people. Both had recently lost their spouses and now had to go through this mess.

She will be calling SS on Monday. I wanted her to do a walk-in but she does work, and walk ins are available in Pittsfield MA if she can make it. I did consider ID theft too, but didn't mention it to her as I thought maybe SS # would be shut off, but your idea to pull the credit reports is a good idea so I will advise that. As Catherine mentioned, I did have her check her bank account and last deposit went in on 3/21, so the 4/21 deposit is crucial to her being dead or alive. My thought is also an input error somewhere in the SS bureaucracy. After all, nobody's perfect. My thanks to everyone for your responses, and for Possi making me laugh...more than once.

I thought I was unique having this problem. A lady came to me this year because in 2016 the Service notified her she was deceased ! Her husband died in 2015 and on filing in 2016 as single someone made a typo or something and showed her as deceased. She had to go to the local SSA office to prove she was yet alive and it took months to straighten it all out. The Service must have belatedly notified Virginia of her deceased condition so now she is having trouble getting her state refund for this year !

Talk about "forgiven!"