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Just a couple of pics of the grand get together today. I have to s I will attempt to post a picture with name labels, so everyone will know who was here. It was a great time of putting faces and voices with names. (there will be pic of the back 40 in a different post for security reasons...)

Oh this is so great to see! I've been waiting all day. So glad you guys were able to do this, it makes this board come alive with all your smiling faces. Thank you for getting everyone together Rita, you are our Sweetheart Queen. Love you, Bill

Excellent article in the CPA Journal : https://www.cpajournal.com/2018/06/22/first-look-at-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-8/

I'm not overly satisfied with this video, but I've spent around 10 hours to get this far, so, be gentle. The video looks much better before I upload it to youtube, and I'm not sure how to get around that. So with no further ado:

John and I spent the night in Gatlinburg and will head to Crossville later. I keep forgetting it is a different time zone!

Traffic cost us 3 hours (2 mangled up accidents, and normal Friday evening traffic in Cinci), GPS malfunction cost us 2 hours, normal travel time 6 hours, we made it to our motel in Crossville 1:08 AM Crossville local time. Looking forward to seeing all the party people tomorrow!! I may be able to live stream on Facebook and/or do some video chat on Facebook, or other chat programs. In addition, I will post pictures. Maybe some that the subjects in the picture, did not even know they were taken!

almost there. At my hotel in Cookeville. Excited to get together tomorrow. Tom Modesto, CA

The 3 brackets phase in at $1000 (single) and $2000 (married) - the final one phases in at $3000 single and $6000 married. These are so low that anyone who is a warm body will exceed and be at the 5% level. All govt pensions (regardless of what govt) are exempt, and over 2000 commercial pensions are exempt. The standard deduction is so low that almost anyone can itemize - and the Sch A is much more generous than Federal with the exception of state income taxes. And to make the scheme even more regressive - the federal income tax liability is deductible. That means high income people with heavy FIT liabilities have an incremental rate of much less than 5%. Robin Hood in reverse. The "flat tax" of 5% is the maximum incremental tax anyone can possibly pay. The wealthy pay much less.

Or stop processing such 'hot' stuff!

When I was encoding the screen capture videos into hi-def wmv files, my computer started overheating. I use SpeedFan to monitor my computer temps and alert me when it's too hot. My CPU normally runs about 45-55C, and the alarm sounds at 60C. The alarm sounded and the CPU temp climbed to 64C, so I turned my AC down to 68F and had to blow a fan on my computer to get the temp down to about 57C. Maybe I should have a bigger CPU cooler installed.

Nice instructions. Thank you!!!!!!!!

Here are a couple of my short and sweet letters, if you want to play around with them. I don't add the late payment penalties part of the letter until after 4/15. It's a little tricky getting the estimate portion arranged because each payment must be pasted into ATX separately, and you need to rearrange the 4 lines that are the default in ATX, into 2 lines. Federal Refund Direct Dep.rtf Federal Refund Direct Deposit Partially Applied.rtf Federal Bal Due-Penalties.rtf

If you switch it to HD, it looks pretty good. Not sure why YouTube was playing it on 480p for me. I'll also need to research why I ended with with a black frame around the video. I learned a few things making this video. I used Microsoft Expression for the screen capture & audio, and Microsoft Movie Maker to edit out all of my tongue clicks and 'ums' and mistakes and long pauses. I was quite annoying the first time I watched the raw footage! If you're wondering why ATX seems to work so fast, it's because I cut out the delays when opening the return and when bringing up the print dialog. They don't seem that long until you're watching them in a video!

You're welcome! So glad you liked it! I'm going to do another on tips and tricks. Someday.

What a terrific instructional video. Thanks very much for posting it. Your customized letters provide so much more detail. I'll look to play with this during the off season. Thank you again.

I charge double what the bank charges. Any client gets one strike. Yes, occasionally we get someone who does not make good, and we eat the fee. Way cheaper than chasing them in the long run. I had one deadbeat call me years later, looking for papers relating to her daughter's adoption (she knew we scanned everything). She paid up - with profuse apologies - I went digging and found her docs, she was thrilled.