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None of us need or want clients like that, and we are usually glad to see the back of them as they walk away! Anyone they refer is likely to be as bad or worse, too. I have no sympathy for the clients with triple my income, no savings (normal or retirement), huge mortgage payments, and high-end leased cars, who whine about my paltry fee or my expectation of being paid.

I hope every one here has a wonderful day with family and/or friends. Travel safely!

Have a great turkey day, everyone.....

Happy Thanksgiving!

UltraTax required the EFIN IRS letter from us this year. When their request was ignored, they called more than once and said unless they had it very soon our efile capabilities would be delayed. We've been in business a long time and UT had the letter when we started with them a decade ago, but this update is supposedly a new IRS rule. I understand that people are angry about it, but it's got to be an attempt to stop fraudulent returns. The DIY software that the crooks favor is now sending all kinds of data tags along with each return filed. Perhaps this is one move the IRS is making to stay ahead of the jerks. Hmmmm, if they know they can't get away with filing 400 returns with their $80 TurboTax package, might as well buy a professional version and borrow some unsuspecting practitioner's EFIN. I know it's a colossal pain, but if it saves our tax dollars from going to criminals and spares some taxpayers from refund fraud, it's worth it.

Hmmmmmm..... No further comment is needed...

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Trying to get two EINs for a client who needs them TODAY and do multiple years of tax returns for my late clients. And, then this payroll question....

I had (key word) several clients that had that same excuse year after year. Yet they lived a lifestyle way above mine. When I drew the line, they chose to leave.

I agree and often help out clients that hit hard times. If they were previously good clients, and easy to work with. Pia's then no. Its these people that appreciate you and often wind up recommending you to good clients

I agree, it depends on the client. For example I recently had a very good longtime client who ran in to hard times both personally and in business. I was glad to help her out.

OMG, I hope you're right. I love so much of this. You have captured my sentiments so accurately after being on hold with them yesterday for one hour and forty-four minutes. That part I highlighted, though, that sounds even more serious than me telling my client's secretary, who was trying to set up an installment agreement, per his request, that he filed a Form 1040 jointly with his wife. If we go to the crossbar motel, will we still be able to talk to people here? Is there interweb in the slammer? Don't do it, Tom. .

I am going to take the minority approach to the question. My first reaction was - "no way, Jose!". Then I stopped and hung a few of my clients names onto your question. If this has been a continuing client paying pretty much timely and the work was not an over-burden, ie,, over 25 W-2s, I would probably do them gratis. If the client had been continually late pay and a PITA, I would probably not take his calls. For anyone between those two extremes, I would work something out with the client that was mutually agreeable.

Llamas, did you formally tell them you aren't doing any more work for them, regardless? Because those clients somehow find the money they owe about two days before the W2s are due..... just say in'....

Complete the 203B. The problem we all have with this scenario is that NY (and a few other states) demand that total wages be allocated to NY on the W2. (So if the client made $50k, $1k in NY, the state portion of the W2 will show $50k for NY, $49k for PA, making it look like he made $99k.) Only way out of this is to complete the B. On request, some employers will send a letter, based on expense reports, to break down the state income. Without that, you have to count the days. The reason the states do this is that they want to tax you at your highest marginal tax bracket. In my example, if you only made $1k in NY you wouldn't owe any tax. If you made $50k, however, you'd be in the, say, 8% bracket. They want to make sure that $1k is taxed at 8%.

I would never drop my snack but the thought of Form Coconut struck me as the funniest thing I've heard in connection with information returns. I know, the material is unending, but still...

Eric, KC and I had many discussions over that year and a half period, and all three of us agreed to put a ban on politics for the good of the forum. The description of General Chat is clear and does indicate that the forum will not include politics, and most everyone has been understanding of this and sticks with accounting, tax, and software subjects as is our focus. For newer members that weren't here a couple of years ago and as a reminder to those that were here, remember that we did try a separate forum, tried asking posters to be respectful, tried reasoning, tried warning points, tried time outs as a cooling off period, and no one liked any of those solutions and they weren't working either. When the occasional political posts do occur, there isn't any way left to deal with this other than to hide or delete them and let the poster know, and that is how Eric suggested it be handled. I'm following his decision on that across the board with ALL political posts so that it isn't personal or at all biased against one side or the other, and so that there is no judgement call about whether something is so mild that it won't be offensive or not. Since I am the moderator that happens to be on here most of the time, I am the one that is either hiding those posts or editing those words out of a post by using a very light font so that the post is preserved with the offending part not visible to the membership. Again, what seems innocuous to start with can quickly escalate into something else. All it takes is for a followup post to include some reference to their candidate, party affiliation or platform, or something against the other side, and we'd be off and running. At this point in time, we aren't going back to hosting political discussions.

Bart: I enjoyed the political give-and-take in the early days, and I enthusiastically participated in it. I think I even had a few posts deleted or was strongly encouraged to alter some things I said. For those of us who have pretty thick skins, not much bothered us. But it was obvious that some posters took things to heart and had very emotional, visceral reactions (even to what I considered some fairly humorous or innocuous stuff at times). Since the main purpose of this forum is sharing professional guidance & experience, it was a wise decision of the moderators to adopt the current policy.