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I did not venture an opinion because I don't really have one. We don't have very many younger clients, but then we don't have very many clients with simple,straight-forward returns either. And it seems like every year I lose a few clients, and I gain a few clients so that we stay in about the same place. I also send a few away every year, but that is another topic. That said, I am also getting older and starting to think about getting out of the business myself. I don't mind being responsible for putting the information on the return that the client provides me, and asking reasonable questions, but I am tired of being an unpaid auditor for the IRS. Too mush stick and not enough carrot these days, IMHO. The only thing that I am really sure of is that change will continue. When I first started, it was with paper and pencil. Then computers came in,, followed by the competition from folks who offered refund anticipation loans.

TT and freefile have been around a good long time, yet the percentage of taxpayers using paid professionals has hovered just under 60% for years. Perhaps young tech-savy people will never use us so they won't replace the older and middle-age clients who would never touch their own returns. I actually had a couple of young guys who chose to do their own partnership return after the first year to save money. (As a professional, I didn't touch a partnership return until I had 10 years of experience under my belt and a zillion courses on the topic.) They have no fear of technology until the audit letter arrives. After another year or so under TCJA, I do foresee more clients who no longer come close to itemizing drifting away too. That said, the tax rules have gotten insanely complex, especially for the self-employed, and lately they change on a weekly basis. How many Uber drivers even know what QBIA is? Heck, people can't even do their own W4s without professional help anymore. (For the first time ever, we are going to start charging for the new version.) And more and more people are willing to pay for things they can do themselves like car washes, lawn care, food delivery instead of driving to the grocery or McD's to get it yourself. So I don't see all doom and gloom but think we'll have to wait to see how it plays out. Disclaimer: Most of our clients are like Edsel's with complex investments, businesses, trusts, etc. If we had more of an early-season crowd I'm sure I'd think differently about the future.

This one is key! (And leads to representation cases, but put that aside for now.) We have one new company, set up by existing clients. They set up a partnership, they thought. Hey, they're high-tech folks doing engineering, they can figure out these filings and stuff; we don't have to ask about that! Got a bookkeeper who they thought was competent (she's fine for data entry, but in no way a "full charge bookkeeper" which is a profession we really need to see come back). Put both "partners" on payroll. Wanted to be a non-profit "seed technology" (as in, seeding technologies, not little things to put in dirt in spring) source, so they have sourcing "arrangements" with another group. Put in asset funding from this other group (investments for acquiring some expensive tech equipment) as income, 'cuz that's what the "partner" told the bookkeeper, who doesn't know enough to question him. All kinds of little gotchas like that one, and they were in it for a year before they thought to tell us anything. It's going to take us a couple of *years* to fix the mess completely and properly. Step #1: a "partnership" that ends up being taxed as a c-corporation, as that was the only choice left once we got our hands on this mess at tax time last year. Will these people ever blink before checking with us, ever again? Nope; they are good enough engineers to see the mess they made by not asking first. (We hope and pray, and so they say.)

I, too, don't mind the attrition as I am in my last 3 years of work. I renewed my license in December for those 3 years and, at 77 then, will call it done. I spun off all business returns, save one partnership, and payroll and bookkeeping a few years ago when the other CPA working for me retired. I didn't want to continue any year round work. I kept 50-60 individuals and have let nature take its course. I still have about 50 losing a couple each year yet somehow gaining at least one. This keeps my brain involved and engaged and gets me enough money to go on great dive trips so I'm pretty happy with the situation for me. I do wonder about the future for accountants and tax preparers, however. Different world ahead, for sure.

Happy New Year to everyone here! I started the year with a nasty cold that turned into bronchitis, but that is getting better. All my tax season letters (that go by mail) are out today. The electronic ones will go maybe tomorrow or Saturday. It begins again!

I have one client that requires a new W4 EVERY January- it seems to be the only way we get current addresses for his employees.

Good comments from those who have ventured opinions. The IRS has not improved their level of quality either. You would think after the cuts of 2013-14 they would realize just how bad they have become. More support for Catherine's comment about representation. The speaker at my last seminar was from Illinois, and he stated their were NO trained IRS auditors south of Springfield in his state. The IRS has issued a requisition to hire one college graduate to fill the need. The graduate needs a degree in anything, not necessarily a degree in accounting or taxation. This level of expertise explains why you have to be referred to a couple tiers of supervisors in order to intelligently discuss anything when you call in. I'm thankful for the clientele that I have - I have not gravitated to the February crowd, and leave myself exposed to the fleeing public described by Pacun. He emphasized with several examples that our customers' own interests would prevail over personal service.

One that's growing, however, is representation work. As the IRS shifts more of its "analysis" to computers and low-end office drones, more returns are going to appeals - which people can't handle themselves. All the folks I know in rep work are busier than one-armed paper hangers, and getting busier.

We did something similar last year; a return (finally!!!) ready to e-file after e-file shut down. We sent it in on paper (and I charged the client for the envelope and postage, after taking so &^%$# long to come in to sign I did not want it sitting on their desk for six months and I'd end up with a NYS letter to answer), with the "e-file is shut down" note, and it went through.

Everything I have read is they can keep their current W4 however they want to make any changes they have to use the new one.

This forum, this site, is invaluable to me. I've come to highly depend upon those who give of their time and expertise and answer the many questions that are posted here. I also appreciate all that is involved in technically allowing it to happen. I gladly contribute. While I'm not looking for any recognition of my contribution, I personally do not feel the "Donor" tag is inappropriate. If the decision is made to remove it fine. If the decision is made to keep it, in my opinion it should reflect donors from the current calendar year. Maybe the Donor tag is reset on 1/1 each year? Again...just some thoughts to consider and obviously there are many scenario's that a "reset" would not be beneficial....especially to those who donate late in the year. Eric...can the "Donate" designation be reset on the one year anniversary of the donation?

I hadn't considered that, thank you for pointing it out. I'll give this some thought... I'm not going to make any changes hastily, and will probably look to you folks for feedback before doing anything.

Personally, I don't like the donor label at all. I wish it would go away. Not my site, so not my call, but I would not want anyone to feel uncomfortable that they are not a donor. I usually give one time per year, and when that label came about, it was a few months before I hit the button. I felt kinda weird as one of the regulars on the board without a donor designation. I believe Eric knows how I feel about him and his work, and I would be willing to give more if he ever asked. He hasn't, I give something every year, I have no idea how that stacks up to the giving of others and I don't care. Eric has my contact info and could PM me if he thought I was slacking on what I give, and I would not be offended if he did. He has never said what it takes to run the site nor made a suggestion on what each of us should give to keep it going. That is his choice and I respect it. Just my 2 cents. Tom Modesto, CA

Even if you don't install a bunch of prior years of ATX on your new computer, I'd copy all the prior years' data to the new computer and create new backups of the data. Then you can install those years if ever needed.

I have been donating every year, perhaps I deserve a Gold Star

Besides third party software compatibility, another consideration is the age of your computer and its hardware, drivers, and peripherals, and whether or not all of those will be compatible and fully functional after an upgrade. I don't ever upgrade the OS of an existing, older computer for this reason but will try using older printers or scanners with subsequent newer computers.

I would just love for someone on the other end for the IRS validate the information on Form 8867 like we have to...

Quite interesting....At Forbes site. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewdepietro/2019/01/31/accountants-and-tax-preparers-salary-state/#5aefb49798cf

And furthermore...: If the employee's too stupid to figure it out AND the employer's not supposed to be allowed into the fray at all under any circumstances AND I (for sure) don't want to do it THEN who the heck will be filling it out? If it's you, then it's practically a given that the employee is going to ask the employer for help first. So, when the employer comes to you with it and asks what to do about it - Am I to understand that you're going to tell him to send the employee to you AND you (the tax expert in question) are going to tell the employee that he must fill it out because you are obligated NOT to give him any "tax or legal advice" (plus he owes you 50 bucks)? Won't he/she think you're nuts? How are you going to help him without helping him? Just thought of some sweet revenge: I'm going to tell them to call the IRS toll-free number for advice and there'll be a short () wait on hold. Should be quite a bit of fun when they finally get through.

Yes, and I "hope there will be peace in the world" but I'm not holding my breath (and Johnny Cash was till wearing black {until all wrongs in the world were "righted"} when he died). I'm not saying your outlook is wrong; but rather that I believe S-Corp owners' salary underpayment is much more widespread than commonly assumed. And I don't think Roberts' $30K example is rare, nor do I think it's justified - it's my thinking that an affected party/parties have a very strong lobby in Congress. One school of thought: https://www.accupay.com/_paydays/2012/May/S%20Corp%20Pays%20Zero%20Salary%20to%20Owner_050312.pdf One other item of interest: For years I've been reading/hearing that IRS "aggressively" audits S-Corps for these underpayments, but I've rarely seen it actually happen. Others?

The S-corp rules are up to Congress to change. I don't have a bunch of S-corp clients but when they come through via other firms it's always amazing to see the "paycheck" the owners receive. Had a guy who's company was 3 people. The owner, another salesman and a secretary. The owner worked 40+ hours per week and claimed a paycheck of $30k per year. The company had a profit of $400k per year. Nobody saw that as a problem. I have a friend who started a company 2 years ago and while I don't do his taxes, I'm sure he's doing this stuff. He has a profit of over $10k per week he's told me before his most recent expansion.

As cbslee said, MeF is shut down. Since your software provider's EFC has the return, I think ithe return will be held and sent to IRS when the MeF system is back in operational status. That is usually around the end of January when they start accepting the 2019 returns this season.

Every year the IRS has period of time where all efiles are completely shut down.

Pacun's original post indicates to me that there are fewer members making donations than it would appear. Frankly, I find that annoying. I think that every new member should receive 12 months free. After 12 months they should be required to make a minimal donation of a nominal amount of say $ 10 or $ 20. I don't really care about the donor tag, but I do care about the majority of the members contributing $ 0.00 !

Thanks, good idea! I had forgotten about this form. And since NY doesn't allow any writing except a signature, this should, I hope, suffice.

Eric, All of us benefit from this forum and we should be more thankful to you. I am voting for yearly "donors" pin decorations.

No, they don't expire. I believe it says Active because it's basically treated as a subscription... but since you're not really receiving anything in return for the subscription (aside from my gratitude!), I don't take any actions to "deactivate" the subscription. Pacun sent his recommendation a month ago, but I felt like it would seem like a money grab so I didn't do it.

Agree 99.99% on getting a new computer vs updrading to the lastest OS. Here is my current step up: Computer 1: 2006 to 2010 ( in storage) Computer 2: 2010 to 2014 (in storage) Computer 3: 2014 to 2018 (will keep on hand, SSD) Computer 4: 2016 to 2019 (brand new Dell XPS business machine with an SSD)

FTFY

Just like in the real world, many fail to follow leach laws because their four legged friend is "friendly", "always minds", "is not a danger", "is tiny", or whatever. Does not help those folks when they get ticketed, or at least twice a year, I am forced to pepper spray their four legged friend because of the human's stupidity. To me, "laws don't apply to me attitude" needs to be corrected (and we can all try to change laws we do not like), especially when one is presenting themselves in a manner to represent others, such as the CPA in this example.

ALL PROGRAMS make changes to the registry but not all of them need to be removed and reinstalled. Before you upgrade, run the pre-upgrade tools and you will see where you will have issues. I was going to pay $199 to have a Windows 10 license for the upgrade. I added another 1K and I got a nice DELL computer that is fast. I don't like to upgrade per se because of other lingering issues. I went to the old computer, backed up all my returns and all other stuff and I installed ATX 2018 on the new one and restored the back up. I will then install ATX 2019 and I should be OK. If people lost their tax return copies for 2017 or before, 1-800-829-1040 or if they are nice clients, I will boot up my windows 7 machine and connect with centronics to my printer.

Happy, Health, and Prosperous New Year! Mine didn't start out healthy. We were visiting the grandkids from Christmas Day, and they were all sick. Of course, the whole family got sick. Our return home was delayed as first hubby and then I got sick. I always wanted to stay at The Inn for their New Year's Eve party, but I spent it in bed and in the bathroom for 36 hours. I could hear the music, though. And, hubby was well by then so ate and maybe drank but probably didn't dance. I seem to be taking longer to get over this "24-hour" stomach bug plus cold. I hope this is it for illnesses this year!

Honestly I"m not sure how the S-corp tax advantages are still allowed.

I don't want to look. They all probably make more than me.

Welcome to the Roaring Twenties. I mentioned that to a 20 something in my neighborhood while walking the dog and she looked at me puzzled. She then asked me what it was like living in the last century. I told her the 1900s were the best, best of music, cars, dancing and doing things without the help of a cell phone. Happy New Year everyone.

IR-2019-215, December 31, 2019 WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today issued the 2020 optional standard mileage rates (PDF) used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes. Beginning on January 1, 2020, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be: 57.5 cents per mile driven for business use, down one half of a cent from the rate for 2019, 17 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes, down three cents from the rate for 2019, and 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations. IRS Site...https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rates-for-2020

My friend asked me what I saw myself doing tomorrow. I said that is a silly question. Do you think I have 2020 vision?

I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2020! For those that are traveling, please be safe.