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Thanks to all of you for the comments. I am dragging. I know I am so very fortunate because I work alone, don't prepare returns with clients in front of me, and I've not missed a single day of work. Stopped working Saturdays a month early. But Holy Crow, I feel like I can't get anything done. I had five of my October PITA clients who became April PITA clients, and you know it's like pulling teeth to get them wrapped up. Bless their hearts; I don't know who ties their shoes for them. Add one million EIP calls and hey-my-return-was-filed-in-February-but-I've-not-received-my-refund calls. At least my folks are overwhelmingly pleasant, and I know some just want me to tell them we're gonna be fine. So thankful for the extension from April 15 to July 15. I sure needed it.

I like to get about 5-8 tax returns of normal types done a day - getting a couple complicated entity's in between a week - I am the last review, my staff inputs. I am lucky now to get 5 done a week!! Since Covid with the EIDL, SBA's, hardships, employer unemp comp, and now farm SBA, I think I am just going to tell people - "you know we HAVE been closed for 8 weeks!!" And none are patient anymore - they do not care about anything anymore... Sorry - most are nice and some have called back and apologized. Hospital staff say everyone is angry - angry they have to isolate, and others angry, people are not!! We just had our 2nd case so we sort of quarantined early - waiting for other shoe to drop - maybe should have posted other thread - but was talking initially about busy =- still working 7 days a week - usually 9-14 hours a day Haven't worked by myself in 17 years... and at that have someone in 2 days a week to keep going on paperwork and remotely with emails and phone calls. Be Safe D

Or, the nonclient (friend, church acquaintance, relative of client, etc.) who wants your opinion because they think their tax professional gypped them out of deductions by failing to file Schedule A -- when the standard deduction was much higher than their itemized deductions or the SALT limit lowered their deductions or... My daughter's teenage friends each received $1,200 so now my daughter's mad at me for claiming her. Please amend my return. When will I get my stimulus check? What will be my capital gain rate for 2020? I often let my phone go to voice mail, because I encourage email so I have a savable trail. That meant I'd answer emails fast. Now, I'm letting many wait until I'm done for the night or until the next business morning (even if I'm sitting here on non-business days).

Yes! Just because you did their tax return, they think you should be “on call” to answer all of their stupid questions tax-related or not.

D, I feel the same way. I don't even know where the time goes. People are really pushy here, also. I am working completely by myself and I'm not the happiest either. I was going to try to make it until 70 doing this, bu tif it keeps up like this, I may just wait to 65 for Medicare and then go work for somebody doing anything but this. I spend so much time answering the phone, emails and reading that actually preparing returns is a pleasure. I just got Ifirm as a portal yesterday, but I don't have time to learn to use it for at least a few weeks.

Could you translate this down to 1996 techie knowledge? Tom Modesto, CA

Thank you for making realize how fortunate I am that my practice is primarily small business write up, payroll and business entity tax preparation.. I just counted and I only have 6 non business 1040s that I do and 3 of those used to be business returns. Truly, I have not had a single one of these calls. Now I feel like I am sitting underneath a Double Rainbow !

These days, with the way many people think, having a printable trail is not an option. Voicemail transcription to email is handy. Not always accurate, but reasonable, especially since the sound file is usually attached.

Or the calls about their tax returns, mailed priority, and aren't in their mail box on the expected date. As if I can do anything about how or what the postal service handles the mail. Ugh !!!

Our VOIP provider gives us an email with voice to print copy of all voice mails. I can also download any voicemails I think. I can also record any phone calls I want (my state only requires one side to know a call is being recorded).

I too am thankful for the new 15 July deadline, because my tax preparation is no where near what it would be by a normal 15 April. I'm still going to have lots of extensions. I love the clients who call to ask if I filed their returns yet when I'm waiting on them to give me the list of information needed that I emailed two weeks ago. No, when you give me your W-2 and NY driver's license and answer the virtual currency question and give me details on the $6,000 you gave to charity and confirm your banking information and..., I'll complete your returns and send them to you for signatures.

Recently all the calls about the stimulus checks have been taking up a lot of time.

Funny how we can all relate, and this conversation is happening to often, when I talk to non-tax persons or people that don't deal with clients, they always say "why do you setup boundaries". I hate when that happens, but they correct, so please share how you took over the driver seat and took away the power from that pushy person.

what is this word, and what does it mean? we are all tax accountants - doesn't that say it all?

If her parents do not claim the student as a dependent, the student can claim the AOL but NOT the refundable part (also would NOT claim her own exemption when her parents qualify to claim her but do not). If the student qualifies to claim her own exemption (pays more than 50% of her own support, etc.) then she can use all the AOC including the refundable part when she claims her own exemption.

Oh yes! There was one program that the preparers looked up entry line numbers and had a pages of paper with blank lines to write the line numbers and amounts, then hash totals. Data entry person entered all of that into a DOS-based program that generated a rudimentary tax form with a dot matrix printer on tractor fed paper. Ah, the good ol' days ... NOT! It was truly awful, and the entry person had to start the entire process over from the beginning if there was a mistake because there was no way to go back to correct anything. Seriously, I could have done the entire return faster with a pencil and eraser than all of that nonsense.

Is that one of the new Revenue Officers being hired?

Only available for 2019 tax year. Nice to see they are working on this. Hopefully it works well and they can expand it to all open years in the near future. Tom Modesto, CA

You really don't want to know how long we have tortured ourselves?!?! Blank IRS forms, Parsons with pencil and carbon paper, Saber, ATX, Drake. Couple of others I can't remember. As far as the number of years, started in 1982.

It is something which requires active participation in setup and maintenance. You can port your public number to a virtual service, then the number, via the setup in the virtual service, can be set to forward to a physical phone (such as a cell), just made announcement only, voice mail transcribed to email, etc. The VOIP type service "hosts" your public number, and offers setup options as to what to do when someone calls, texts, and possibly faxes your public number(s). The advantage of the VOIP type service is not having to pay for a landline (since we all have cell phones). (There is a disadvantage of no landline during a disaster scenario, as cell towers get overwhelmed, will run out of backup power - if they even have backup power.) Via the VOIP service, I can have whatever physical number(s) I want ring, set hours, and have voicemails transcribed and sent to me via email (including a sound file I can listen to if the transcription was not great). Saving the transcription and sound file is good "evidence" should you get into a "I did (or did not) say that" scenario. Google voice has the ability to record live calls, and IIRC, provides a method of notification so even a two party consent (for recording) state like CA is covered. -- For most, it really is not terribly complicated. Mine is complicated because I often stay at places where I have to use a secondary or tertiary cell carrier, or even a sat phone or just wifi phone. Rather than having to remember to setup and return to normal when I travel, I have a long set of setup in place all the time, forwarding down the "line" until one of my physical phone lines ring or receives a message. So for most, some sort of efax (if needed) setup, plus google voice for voice, text, and answering machine, will be more than adequate

For a free service, with good features, "wash" your calls through a google voice number. In other words, forward your calls to GV and let GV be the answering machine. If you want to answer as well, GV can forward to another number, such as a cell. You could even (I think) port your business number to GV, and just forward to whatever cell or LL number you wish (presuming you want to answer some of the time). GV handles texts in and out as well. I also use VOIPO, as a virtual service, since they handle incoming and outgoing fax as well. While VOIPO offers an actual VOIPO physical phone, I don't use it, as I prefer forwarding. My setups are fairly complicated, as I travel (so I use different cell carriers depending on where I am at). I also like to have an easy to swap option, rather than having a failure cause me to have to scramble. I actually have a check list of steps showing how I bounce things around, with notes on how to change if something goes awry. Public facing fax, is a virtual number (VOIPO), which creates a pdf emailed to me. I can send outgoing fax messages by attaching PDF and using a special email address format (receiving fax number @ a certain domain). $36 per year IIRC. Public facing voice, virtual number using VOIPO. $185 every two years IIRC. Has voicemail transcription (attaches a sound file to an email). Many other options. The one flaw is their ring silence option is in beta. Accepts text messages too, in a similar manner, and allows replying to incoming text messages directly (email send to the text number). I can also forward my public number to another number, or use simultaneous ring. Both GV and VOIPO have ways to have outgoing calls use your public number for caller ID, such as when forwarding to and calling back from a cell or other number you do not want the public to see. If I did not need the fax ability, I would probably just use GV as my "hub". I am likely porting the voice number to GV when my VIOP voice subscription runs out, and just keeping VOIPO for fax.

I used a program from MN... which had MN and WI - and then did the SABER!!! miss that and the bunny hop... need some fun here... D

You must "sign in" to see the donate button. Thankyou for the reminder and a BIG THANKYOU to Eric!!

That's the one I was thinking about. H&R Block owned them.

Get copies of prior year trust returns. Ask why they are not using the trust's prior preparer.

Started out with TaxAct in 2001, then switched over to ATX from 2005 until 2012 and been with Drake ever since. Part time gigs reviewing for other firms I have used Proseries , CCH Prosystems, and another god awful program whose name I have erased from my memory.

The solution Max mentioned about a written forgiveness of the loan and converting to a contribution is what I have used with clients years ago. There were, I think, one or two small principal repayments but the balance was then forgiven. The church issued an acknowledgement at that time as the gift was as of the date the loan was forgiven.

I agree with the check-check solution. As for the receipt, do you mean the formal letter acknowledging the gift? Does the non-profit have enough funds to write the check? It may be that they are having problems making payments, which could be the reason for the loan forgiveness. I think the problem with Marie's plan to amend is the acknowledgement letter, as that has to be contemporaneous with the gift. A possible solution would be for the client to write a letter to the N.P. forgiving the balance of the loan as a donation. The NP would then send the client the acknowledgement letter.

I always assumed ATX stood for Advanced Tax software. Anyone ever make a list of all the tax programs they've used? TaxAct, TaxWise, Drake, Intellitax (My favorite), ATX, Proseries and OLTPRO are mine I think. Has to be another 1-2. H&R Block had software they sold to professionals - anyone remember the name?

Then you almost certainly need to do a trust return.

If it is a type of grantor trust, the transactions appear on the grantor's income tax return. For most types of trusts, the trust files Form 1041 and the state equivalent. Read the trust document and the IRS letter assigning an EIN, if any. You might need a conference call with your client and the lawyer who set up the trust. I have never worked with a "settlement trust." Don't forget to look at state law, too.

Thank you all for the donations. I apologize for being such a slacker about responding to each of them individually. My work has increased considerably due to COVID-19, but I'm hoping to see that decrease a bit now that summer is arriving, which is usually my slow time. We'll see, though--everyone is looking for ways to do things online that had ordinarily been done in person before. Thank you all again! I hope you're all staying healthy and sane.

I don't know where the name originated but maybe Eric would since he worked there. Based in Caribou, Maine, and Ft. Pierce, Fla. ATX Forms was founded in 1992 and owned by brothers Glynn and Steve Willett. The company's tax software under the ATX Forms name was MAX and Saber. Glynn Willett agreed to stay on for roughly four years when UCG purchased ATX Forms in 2002 to oversee the company’s tax research and software business. UCG is the company that had Kleinrock. I started with Saber, and it started with a tiger roar upon launch. iirc, it was some sort of excel-based program, but I could have that confused with some other program at this point. I also had something called Zillion Forms around the same time. https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/kleinrocks-ucg-acquires-atx-forms

I may be wrong Abby, but it could be....Athletic T Rex...