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After dilly-dallying for about 10 years, I made the jump to Drake yesterday. I had been with ATX and its predecessor for about 20 years. I was mostly happy with ATX except for the switch to big impersonal CCH, the forum fiasco back in '08 and the '12 snafu (which didn't impact me as badly as some others). However, I noticed the last couple years that it was taking about 50% longer to prep a return than it did five years ago. Between coding bloat and making the input process more complicated ATX had just gotten too slow. Absorbing a 50% hit on prep time was just too much. I've been playing around with a Drake demo for a week or so and went to a demo seminar on Monday (about the 4th one I've been to--I'm just about on a first name basis with Warren Drake!). The speed together with Drake's business philosophy is what pushed me over the top. The fact that it's $300 cheaper (and only one price hike in 20 years) didn't hurt! So when I do I get the secret Drakey (or is Drakonian?) password?

Arrgghh! I figured out what the problem was. On Part IX I indicated the grant was to domestic individuals instead of domestic organizations. I sure wish this stupid computer would enter what I intended to do instead of what I actually put in. Stupid computer What I don't know is why the Check Return routine was linking back to Part IV instead of Part IX where the error was.

And that's why I combed my hair......Do I look OK?

I have many clients tell me how they are making money from them, because of the monthly/quarterly distributions. Then I show them that it isn't coming from INCOME, but from PRINCIPAL. Usually 50-60% from Principal. And I ask them who are they selling these assets to when they want to get out? That always makes for a great Client "face". And did we notice how many clients have these K-1's THIS year? Because the sharp guys on Wall Street were dumping them. Oil market/prices are going down, so sell these assets that were going up, that are starting to go DOWN, to *our* clients. Thanks big brokerage firms.... You just stuffed the investment dreams of your clients. Rich

​Margaret, once you 'pull' a quote, you can 'edit' it by typing inside the quote box, so occasionally someone accidentally includes their comment inside the box. Mostly, we use that ability to trim a quote to just the portion we are commenting on. If the original post has 25 lines, but I want to respond to only one line, it's much clearer, and neater, to delete all but that line from the quote box, as I just did on yours. Don't think Jack [or anyone] was trying to put words into your mouth. ​

​Another suggestion was make sure screen resolution was not too low. That was not my problem. I hear ya on the eyes thing. I look back at reports I did six years ago, and I can't even see them now. Who knew?? (Well, everybody, but I didn't believe them.) Thank God for 12 point font. OK, 14.

I am amazed at how quickly Eric manages to fix even minor glitches once we mention them. We are so fortunate to have him running this board for us! Kudos, Eric!

WASHINGTON—The Internal Revenue Service is getting in on the hunt for cybercrime. The agency, which is increasingly being drawn into complex cyberprobes involving tax fraud, has set up a new criminal-investigation team of about a dozen agents. The Washington-based unit will tackle a nearly fourfold jump in identity-theft cases since 2011, many of which involve hackers stealing information in order to collect victims’ tax refunds. Virtually all of the 1,063 identify-theft cases the unit has initiated in the last fiscal year involve some digital element, according to IRS data, and many have involved sophisticated global hacking rings. Richard Weber, who heads criminal investigations at the IRS, said his team has found connections in the past several months to Nigeria, Russia and other Eastern European countries including Bulgaria, Romania, and Latvia. The IRS has traced $26 million in criminal profits to those countries, and its latest intelligence shows criminal groups stockpiling data for the 2016 tax filing season. In many of the cases, hackers steal identifying information such as Social Security numbers and pose as the victim by submitting tax returns to the IRS to collect the refund. Victims often only realize what has happened when they try to submit their tax returns and are told that a return under their Social Security number has already been submitted and paid. Taxpayers can wait months trying to get the money back. Over the past year and a half, more investigations have started leading the IRS down a digital trail, creating a need for more expertise. “That’s when we really started to look at what else do we need to do to make sure that we are investigating the cases the right way,” Mr. Weber said in an interview. The new unit, which will draw on existing computer specialists and other IRS criminal-investigation agents, comes as the agency has been experiencing cuts in its budget. The IRS has lost more than 100 agents each year without being able to replace them, reducing the 2,700-agent workforce it had in 2011 to 2,400 in February. IRS criminal agents have played a leading role in several recent cyber prosecutions, including a 2013 case against a group of men linked to the digital currency Liberty Reserve, which was allegedly used to launder $6 billion in ill-gotten gains. IRS agents created a government task force that brought together investigators from the Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations and others agencies to pursue leads and build the case. An IRS agent was also instrumental in tracking down Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted in February in connection with running Silk Road, an online drug bazaar described by prosecutors as the most sophisticated criminal marketplace on the Internet. An IRS agent connected the dots to Mr. Ulbricht through a Google GOOGL -1.77 % search for “silk road” and “.onion”—the address for sites hosted on a hidden part of the Internet called the Tor network, according to testimony from the agent at Mr. Ulbricht’s trial. Another IRS agent was the lead investigator in a related probe of two federal agents who were originally investigating the Silk Road case, but charged in March with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars of virtual currency through the original investigation. “Between Liberty and both Silk Road cases, and the fact that we were seeing an increase in the data breach tax-refund fraud...I decided that we should have more of a focus on cybercrimes,” Mr. Weber said. The law-enforcement arm of the IRS investigates possible tax crimes but has a broad mandate, allowing it to investigate money laundering and violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires financial institutions to report suspicious client activity to U.S. authorities. Its agents have been involved in many recent big bank enforcement cases, including BNP Paribas SA BNP -3.01 % ’s $8.9 billion agreement to resolve sanctions violations last year, and Credit Suisse AG’s $2.6 billion agreement to resolve offshore tax issues. According to an IRS sampling of suspicious-activity reports that financial institutions have filed in connection with the anonymous “dark net,” 44% involve identity theft and 24% involve account takeovers. Write to Aruna Viswanatha at [email protected]

​You can always change it back and forth when working on Sage50. Possibly less of a pain in the patootie than the wonky screen of illegibility showing up randomly.

Client shows up March 9th and asks "how late can I bring in my stuff and get my corporate return done by the deadline". Our response was "two weeks ago but we can file the extension now". He agrees to that and sets an appointment for March 22 to bring in his info and go over it with me because "some things have changed". March 22nd comes and goes and he is a no show. Having heard nothing more by April 15th, we opt to not file a personal extension (since the rule is that we need positive confirmation from the client in order to file an extension) and (since we assumed he went elsewhere due to the March 22nd no show). Fast forward to Cinco de Mayo - today. Wife calls to ask if we can expedite their corporate and personal returns if they bring the info in today because "the school" needs copies of their returns. Really?!?!?!? Come on man!!!! We told her that we are booked solid until the end of June - and that is the veryy best we can do. She said she will have to check with her husband. This is the same client that stopped into the office a couple years ago around the beginning of the second week of April and said he is dropping off his stuff so we can get the return done by the 15th. Well that didn't happen. But he did get my blood pressure up that year when he said he has had "the stuff" riding around in his car since early February. And he drives past my office two times per day during my open hours. Gggrrrrr!!!!! OK - I am done with that. I feel better. Thanks for listening!

I feel your pain. A while back I had a client/personal friend who dropped his stuff off at 7pm on April 15. Said he & his wife were on their way out to have dinner; said he'd be back before 10 to pick it up. Stupid me. I raged under my breath ... but did it. Here's the kicker. The next year he decided to try another preparer closer to his home. I haven't seen him since! Works for me.

Eric, another change that I've noticed recently is that when someone uses the quote function the cursor remains inside the quote box, above the quoted text, when the person then starts to type a response. I've had to edit 2 posts so far to separate out the poster's text out from the person he was quoting. It was obvious to me since the first one I noticed was someone quoting me. The latest was a post earlier today when Jack quoted Margaret in the topic about not paying for more licenses than are needed. Do you have a setting that can be adjusted so that the cursor appears outside/below the quote box when we use that function?

Thank you all! I have sent the info to the client and we'll see how much they grumble. I can't change a fundamental feature of the program for them so maybe they will just need to put on their big girl panties and deal.

Absolutely ask for abatement. I just got one abated for over $4,000. The IRS is definitely more aggressive with penalties for everything. Explain the circumstances with as much detail as possible. I'm fighting one now on a 941 that had a liability of $2,200 which was paid with the return and they have penalized them for not making monthly deposits. When the taxpayer called they told him that they were required to pay it monthly. I guess they should actually look at a 941 and see the requirements. I have written two letters and have an additional phone call in to them. This should have been an easy fix, but I think that they have people answering the phone now, that aren't well trained.

I mail the few that I have just to aggravate somebody.

​Yes, it has to have happened to someone. I was hoping someone here in order to avoid calling tech support. That's always a long process and the last thing I want to do. Always. The first thing I do is update. The middle thing I do is ask you guys.

​Eric Maybe it is just "perception" from being in a "bigger" disk space?? As George CaStanza said on "Seinfield" after coming out of the water -- "at times there may be what appears as "shrinkage". Just my 2 cents worth.