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The new forms and reduced withholding absolutely slayed me. Having to sit with every client and go through the stress of their disappearing refunds OVER AND OVER AND OVER, with caring and compassion was emotional and exhausting. The new forms sunk my performance time in each return. And time is money. Overall, the business of taxes was awful, for me anyway. If this was my first year, it would be my last year. And, I'm generally an upbeat person. I am going to close my office tomorrow and not looking back until May 1st. The up side to all of this is that God already knew what was ahead of me, went before me, and didn't let my spirit down. My assistant does all the processing, opens all their mail, scans all the documents, and together we create some kind of "fun factor" in every day. It might just be lunch, but we work something in. I'm really very blessed to have her. That's part of the "God" thing. It's a good spirit here, just tired from it all. I'm truly grateful for this board. Truly. Grateful. You all have become real friends. Another "God" thing, I'm sure.

Overall, I think this tax season went more smoothly than I originally anticipated. It didn't take that long to get used to the new 1040 format and ATX worked relatively well all season. Sure, there were some hiccups and a learning curve but it all worked out in the end. Thanks very much to all the members of this forum who give their time and lend their experience. It's such a great resource and one I value very much. Enjoy the "off" season!

I had a very good season, and I'm really thankful for the Comparison forms in ATX. Really thankful. I didn't have any trouble showing people that they got a tax cut. I think I had maybe three that would have done better with 2017 laws, and two of them were having meals subsidized by the rest of us, so I think losing the 2106 was a good change. People with legitimate EE expenses need to get help from the ER, not the tax code. I feel so badly for those of you whose clients came up short because of under withholding. Mine didn't have that problem. I suspect returns with AGI of five figures had fewer problems with that. And that's where I live and work, and we're not broke. Anyway I really still hate the new forms. Really, really. Hate. Them. So glad I had the Comparison forms. I usually started there. The alternative was going to be saying, "Trust me," a lot.

Generally it went well. Few problems with the program but no need to call in. Under withholding was a big factor and spent some time explaining, but sending the highlighted Comparison sheet with the return was very helpful. Some clients didn't do so great with the new tax bill but most had no problem accepting it. The 6 schedules slowed me down in the beginning so one day when I had nothing to do I sat down and memorized which is which. Also, next year should be a breeze with knowing ahead whether schedule A is needed or not. Thank you everyone for your valued input, I've learned from you and grateful for your help. Always and Forever.

I agree with Possi. By the end of tax season I was navigating the new form fairly well, but I know that it slowed me down A LOT. And it seems like every year the brokerage firms get just a little bit later sending out their information and I wind up more crunched at the end trying to get things out for people. I hate to set a deadline for getting paperwork, because many times it is out of my clients' control. But I don't think I am going to have any choice but to announce that if information is not received in full by the end of March, returns will be place on extension as they arrive just to keep my sanity.

Tragic as this is, the Cathedral will be rebuilt better than before. The aging structure has been undergoing renovation for years. It has survived so much, and will continue on as this fire has now become a part of its history. When the stone walls are considered safe the new roof and nave will welcome visitors to see the blackened wall from the Great Fire of ‘19. I think I heard there is already a billion dollars in contributions. Imagine how beautiful this church will be. The original walls will be there and the artifacts once restored will be placed in their updated home. The Paris Fire Department chaplain and 1st alarm units were brave and risked their lives to save artifacts including the Crown of Thorns. PS. There will probably be a state of the art sprinkler/fire suppression system installed.

If I have to do returns for anybody and everybody, whether I feel like i can trust what they tell me or not, I quit. Some days I am ready to anyway, but that would definitely be the end of this for me.

Yes, and thank goodness we are still free to decline business. If they tell us we have to do every return that walks in the door, guess what? Our prices are going up or we are getting out of the business.

I finally got my last extension out. I finished up several returns today and actually finished more than last season on the 15th. Considering how late my clients were coming in, I'm pretty happy. I really thought that I had lost a bunch, because they were so late, but I only lost a couple of kids to free file. Now I have to hustle to get out the quarterly taxes and some income taxes that I promised, because I'm leaving for Scotland with my son and his fiance for a few days on the 28th. Thanks to all of you that are so gracious and helpful. I could not do this job without the people on this board. All of my friends that started out with me in this field have either quit and gone to another career, retired or died. I hope that I can stick it out until I'm 70 or win the lottery. I hope that everyone has a great summer! Bonnie

My season went well, with the exception of the vast majority of my clients coming in later than normal. I thought that I had lost a lot and then they all came pouring in. The damn brokerage statements coming so late with one or two amended ones just infuriate me. My deadline is much earlier than most of yours, but I don't know how you manage to get them out by 4/15. My February is so filled with appointments, that I only get anything done at night. My new attitude that life is too short and to spend time with my family during tax season didn't help my workload, but I was much happier. ATX worked well for me . QBI really slowed me down. I never felt confident that I had a handle on it, so I was continually researching. ACA is still terrible, but I did find that when everyone else left the Nebraska market, but Medica, that the premiums went up so much that if was considered unaffordable for almost all of my uninsured clients. Most of my uninsured had paid penalties in prior years. I am very worried about having to upgrade from Windows 7 for next season. I am not a fan of 10 of my laptop and I have seen various reports both ways from people with running ATX 7 or 10. I will be here all year, because I have extensions and all of my backlog to catch up on. Thanks to all of you and have a great summer!

This is the new model for software companies. SaaS was sold as something to make your life easier and make your data more accessible. The truth is, the software companies can make more money off of you over the long run, having you pay for the service of using their software, than they can buy selling it to you and providing support. And now they have your data in the cloud and they can hold it hostage with yearly subscription increases. Get used to it. It is the way of the future. I will not be surprised when our tax software is no longer delivered to our computers, but is a login to a massive company server. No control over the updates. No control over the software. No control over the backups. No historical access if you leave. Think MS Office 365. Pay by the month. Intuit online. Pay by the month. All the accounting software companies have a SaaS offering. Some only have a SaaS product. Its not paranoia when they really are after you. Tom Modesto, CA

No AMT. Several of my clients in Colorado hit the SALT losing thousands in deductions. One client with four children under 17 qualified for the first time for the child credit. That client felt like he won the lottery. I was thankful for the comparison form, and all the people on this board.

And if it's a whirlwind romance, she may not even have MET him by then!

If those become the ONLY options, I will go back to pencil and paper. NO ONE owns my data but ME.

The big surprise for us was the number of people who were better off as married filing separately. One slow down was checking to see if MFJ/MFS was better (Drake does a good job at that, at least). The comparison pages showing total tax versus withheld tax was great - that really helped people understand why their situations looked different. LOTS of late forms, LOTS of questions on withheld tax tweaks, LOTS of questions about QBI. I can read the new forms right side up and upside down (depending on where the client is sitting), but sideways is still giving me trouble.

I thought the season went really well until yesterday. Yesterday was nuts! I went home Sunday evening feeling totally prepared for Monday, but Monday came, and it was brutal. The software (ATX) was slow this year and crashed multiple times a day, but once I started shutting it down after every few returns and restarting (a suggestion from Abby, I think), that problem mostly went away. As always, I was super grateful for this Board. Working solo, it's nice to have a 'firm'! I have amazing staff, but no other preparer. I hope each of you gets a little down time this week! I'm curious . . . I filed 365 returns (all types) and have 70 extensions. I know there are people here who did many more returns. If you're so inclined to share, what does your practice look like? Jim (who did 1000, I believe, and briefly outlined his system in an earlier post) might need to do a seminar ;). Best to all of you!

Something else I'll get blamed for. That has been an enormous PITA, not knowing all the ways to save them from repaying subsidies. Not knowing who's going to purchase insurance solely to avoid the SRP. Not knowing who's going to purchase private insurance when they would have qualified for APTC. Not even wanting to know because I couldn't even keep the insurance I didn't like, and why is all this in our laps anyhow? Guess when she picks up her return, I'll tell her that. Oh, wait, if she drops it Dec 31, and has an accident January 10, but the wedding is January 15... I guess she or whomever helped her sign up needs to read the FAQs online. She's in her 50's btw.

No AMT either. Some of my high real estate tax clients from Long Island and Westchester caught a break. Paying 18K for 3 bedrooms and 2 baths is enough of an insult. But others with high combined SALT weren't so lucky when it came to the bottom line. I never could wrap my head around this tax bill. Except for 199A helping small business people I feel the rest was a lot of hocus pocus, now you see it, now you don't tax law. But I'm done, I think I'll have some avocado toast and coffee and watch the other news.

I, brow beat him till he lowered his prices by 60%. "You have many competitors" "I have been your customer for 20 Years. "Many of your competitors have very easy conversion." "I am not afraid of conversion."

Yep, do like Medicare and base it on the prior year's tax return, or two years ago, or whatever it takes to have the returns in the system and be a known income instead of predicting next year. That girl with the wealthy boyfriend, she can't just drop marketplace insurance during the year when she weds. Has to drop it at the end of the year before the wedding to avoid paying back her APTC.

I have once who got big credits two years running - but he got HAMMERED a few years ago with AMT on the stock options that have the two bases (forget which ones; I *always* look 'em up). Paid $13K tax on a LOSS, and at this point has gotten *most* of that back.

I should hope so!

If your program was crashing multiple times, you need to check anti-Virus and other "system protection" software to see if it is causing the shutdown. We have done 2,500 here at the firm, and have experienced crashing, only when I tried to open 3 returns at a time. Maybe 20 times, all season. Also, if your computer hardware is more than 2 years old, REPLACE IT WITH NEW EQUIPMENT that has all the specifications to handle the new program. Do NOT SKIMP on the system, due to price.

Even complex clients who were always deep into AMT.

Agree about the comparison form... it helped explain much to clients not quite grasping what went wrong in many cases or right in a few. I also like the tax summary which shows the marginal and blended tax rate. Several folks got moved to a different bucket in 2018 so that helped, too, but this board helped the most! Thanks again and again to Eric for this platform.

I had a client using Obamacare who got married in Oct and told me about it AFTER the fact. They were pretty upset that "nobody told them" about the recalculation of their ACA subsidy and all that stuff. I told them I'm neither a mind reader nor an insurance consultant. Also told them they could complain to the preparer who they needed to hire to figure out the complicated recalculation, because I wasn't going to get into THAT territory either. I had no interest in doing the research or assuming the risk of getting it wrong. Problem solved (at least on my end)

Yes. What little problems I did have I was able to post on the Drake forum here on this community and was helped. The only real problem I had was with a client who had multiple rentals and for some reason ATX had empty spaces (Numbering of the properties), but all I had to do was reassign the proper for number and everything worked ok. I won't kid you, there is a learning curve but I found Drakes knowledge base very helpful. The one problem I did have was in using the portal that is available. I had a small issue with files that were restored from my laptop not wanting to go into the working portal, they wanted to go into what is called an archive portal. But I called Drake (spoke to a live person within 3 rings) who tried to figure it out. He promised a call back and about a week later he did call with a fix. Very impressed with the program and customer services! Plan on early renew which I haven't done with ATX since 2012.

They need a way to pay for all the Danny DeVito TV commercials.

Torvill & Dean, "Oscar Tango" - not the "Bolero" performance that got them a series of perfect scores at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics. Five minutes. Oscar Tango

Very said. What a tremendous loss.

I am on everybody's side, and it was not my intention to get into what is good and what is not about the provisions of the law. I was strictly looking at the tax implications for my client based on a situation that he had no control over that is now going to put him into debt to the government for the foreseeable future . I just am flabbergasted at how the IRS and congress have put so much uncertainty into the pricing of the required insurance, and the way you can be punished for not being good at predicting the future. I wish they would put some certainty into the pricing (taxing) model they are using. That way, in November when you go to sign up for the next year, you can make an informed decision on the choice to buy or pay the penalty. If I knew at the beginning of the year that the penalty was 2.5K for not having the insurance, and the cost was 2.5K per month to insure my family, they I could make the choice based on certainty. Right now, there is no way to know what the cost of the insurance really is until you have prepared your tax return. And added up the income of the rest of the family. Can you imagine telling your 17 year old to not get a job after graduating high school because it will increase the cost of your insurance tax? Tom Modesto, CA

I am on your side. There was a better solution than this plan. I have also had insurance my entire life. Until 2015 when I joined a Health Sharing Ministry because the premiums for myself and two kids was $10,000 with a $10,000 deductible. I am on your side. And I know you're on my side, too.

Another first for me, I actually had someone get a very small credit on the 8801 for the AMT credit.

I haven't had any either, although all of my higher income clients still have NIITax

I've been following too. Very sad.

Two world wars and many centuries, and SO much history.

The AMT exemption amounts went up some, but the AMT thresholds went up dramatically. I don't think I had any yet, but my really high earners come in later in the year. And, some of the triggers, such as unreimbursed employee expenses, are gone.