Leaderboard

Hi folks, The server move I mentioned last month will begin soon: You'll know it's in progress when the forum is replaced with a static message, and you'll know it's back up when the message is gone and there's an update on this post. I've done a trial run of the migration and although it went smoothly, I expect a few bumps over the coming weeks as it starts getting real traffic. Thank you for your patience!

I've just set up rules to issue a captcha challenge for any visitor not from the US or Canada to help with the bots and spammers. I'm interested to know if anyone on the forums gets caught up in those--if not, I may block traffic from outside North America entirely. I wouldn't normally do something like that, but this is a very US-specific site. Can anyone think of a reason not to?

Alright, everything is moved and at first glance, things appear to be working normally. A lot has changed behind the scenes--more than I'd normally like to change all at once, so please report any issues or broken features you encounter.

You are welcome! I ironed out and documented the process yesterday, and everything went smoothly this morning.

Wow! Quick work, Eric. We appreciate your knowledge and hard work to make this move and to continue to monitor it for us. Thank you!!

I switched and have had no issues that couldn't be resolved with a quick phone call. I did the practice returns when I first tried it and by the time tax season started for the most part I was up and running at about the same speed as ATX. It just gets a little getting use to, but overall I am very pleased.

I'm using CloudFlare to manage DNS and as a proxy in front of the site. If I set up the rules to block traffic from outside of the US at that level, they won't even hit the web server. My only worry is that if a forum member is blocked for some reason, they're not going to have any way to let me know they can't get in. Since enabling the captcha 30 minutes ago (click the checkbox to prove you're not a robot), out of 910 challenges only 4 were solved. It may not be necessary to block the traffic completely if the challenge is effective against the type of traffic I'm trying to prevent.

I agree with virtually everything stated so far in this thread. I too switched to Drake in 2012 and never looked back. It takes a little getting used to because it isn’t forms-based, but forms based software is way over-rated (especially since forms-based software still relies upon worksheets to a significant degree). Drake is great software and it still amazes me how stingy Drake is with memory. Startup is rapid, operationally it’s nimble, and backups are lighting fast. One hint if you switch to Drake. As soon as you get comfortable using it, spend some time learning how to construct “macros”. You can use them to design a lot of customization to automate numerous repetitive and routine tasks.

A few things I had done some country blocking with .htaccss on the old server, but never felt confident that I had a complete list of IP ranges The new server is running nginx, so no .htaccess Cloudflare keeps the traffic from even seeing the website, since they manage DNS and issue the challenge before a request to the server is made Aside from the country blocking, they're doing other bot detection magic, plus I'm adding custom web application firewall rules that are specific to the forum app. I'm a fan of doing as much of this as possible at the proxy, but I also have nginx rules set up for anything that gets through.

Thank you to all who responded. The OP talked the client into claiming an office of 600 sq. ft in an 1800 sq ft. house, so the business use is 33.3% I asked the client if he could justify regular and exclusive use of his entire basement for use in administering the farm operations and he responded "of course not!" I think I can talk him into amending the office to a more reasonable 250 sq. ft, in which case we can amend both returns and still leave the 401-K payment intact since we will also reduce the other expenses for the office from 33.3% to 14%. Ringers

They don't come to us before. Before the divorce. Before dividing assets. Before dividing children. Even my own son left all his tax return copies that I uploaded to my portal for him to give his lawyer, so his lawyer saw nothing about their partnership, nothing about the tax returns before his ex quit working, nothing about all the monies they took out of his Roth to run the partnership and to live off while the ex's TIRA kept growing, nothing. Sorry, tired and cranky today!

I agree with Judy (which is almost always the case!). I don't know that he will be better off if he took investments at the same value because we don't know the basis of the investments that he got. But for sure she gets full basis in their combined hands to calculate the gain and then 250K tax free of that gain. I don't see him getting 250K tax free gain from the investments. It could be her lawyer got her a better deal because the investments are very low basis and he will have a bigger tax bill because of it. If it was my client, I would stay out of questioning the divorce settlement. She had a lawyer to protect her interests and what came out of that is now fact. Looking back at the divvy up of assets will only run you down a rabbit hole you have no business sniffing around. Not telling you how to run your practice, but I am telling you how I would run your practice, because, well, you asked..... Tom Longview, TX

^^ This! Your client's basis is now the basis she and former spouse had as a joint couple, and there is no step-up. She is now selling as sole owner so the exclusion is only the $250K, assuming she meets the requirements for the full exclusion she is allowed.

After using ATX for many years, I switched to Drake mid-season during the 2012 filing season debacle. Support is excellent (if not quite as good as it was before Phil Drake retired). Not quite as intuitive but the search box works really well. No bunny-hop endless circles as I ran into in ATX on too many occasions. If you switch, you get (or at least always used to get; ask about current terms) the current-season software free to roll over returns, or re-create them (to learn how the s/w works), plus prior-year programs free. I don't use Portals but use Verifyle instead. Gruntworx - that was once standalone but got bought by Drake and integrated with it years ago - is something I now consider essential but rarely use more than the non-verified (i.e., automated) bookmarked/indexed pdf creator. It makes methodical entries far easier, but the best use is looking for substantiating documents for the tax agency "send us proof of withholding" type letters. Boom, found in an instant, instead of endless searches through vaguely-named pdf's. It also has The Tax Book as an integrated add-in but I prefer the standalone version. Pricing has been remarkably stable. This year there is a price break for single-user offices (like mine) which I like. TL;DR version: jumping in the deep end worked and while it's not perfect I would not go back to ATX.