Leaderboard

When I read posts like some here in this topic and others, and I think back to the workload I endured in my earlier career, I worry about some of you and about us as a profession overall. I haven't made nearly the amount I could have for whatever talents I have, but I have made a concerted effort for a healthier work-life balance and am happier because of those choices. This work can be extremely rewarding, but I believe that it shouldn't be at the expense of our health and well-being. I wish you all well, hope that you recover quickly, and are able to enjoy some quality time away from the office. I also hope to see you here in the off-season as we continue to work at a less hectic pace.

From a CPE talk I gave back in 2023; (staged) me under my desk after fully reviewing the disaster I had inadvertently accepted as a new client. You may find amusement in this, @mcb39.

When you see someone's name pop up on caller ID and your heart drops, fire them. Life's too short to be miserable.

I'm getting old and spicy, and now, when people tell me something preposterous (or give me some crazy tax rule they 'know'), I look them straight in the eye and say, 'Did your hairdresser tell you that'? Stops them cold. Literally. You should try it. They look at me dumbfounded for a minute, then they usually chuckle, and then they remember that it's a 'fantasy tax scenario', and we never speak of it again. You have to be over 50 to pull this off, but I've now made the cut, and I use it every time.

Immigrant tax reporting aside, this agreement violates the sanctity of the privacy bond between taxpayers and the IRS. We voluntarily give them our most private data and that of our household members and they lock it up so tightly that most of their own employees can't access it. In my Master's course I learned that IRS can share your data with NO ONE, the only exceptions being suspected terrorism and money laundering. We used to joke that you could list your occupation as Hit Man or Bank Robber and the IRS would keep it a secret. Breaking that bond can further dent the agency's tarnished image. ICE is demanding this disclosure to get immigrants' addresses. I think the tax return is not a good place to look. People move, have PO boxes, use someone else's address to get their mail because their own box is insecure, still use Mom's address because they're away at school or she always handles everything. I'm sure all of us have had a client or two who suddenly notices that the address we've been using for five years has the wrong street number of spelling.

Well, that is one way to lessen the number of tax returns the IRS has to process, justifying the force reduction. s/s Super Sarcastic - funny not political. I hope you think it is funny. If Judy kicks me off the board I won't have anyone to talk to at all.... Tom Longview, TX

There are lovely people I serve too though. I delivered a return yesterday to a client/friend of almost 40 years. She's 95 now in assisted living. Return isn't *that* complicated but has half a dozen 1099Rs, one consol broker 1099 package with only 40 page or so, the bigger main consol broker 1099 package that was only 60 pages, and a PTP. We had a really nice visit and did some reminiscing. People like her remind me why I still do this work.

For future use for everyone using ATX, I'm going to copy Abby Normal's instructions to a new post of how to backup ATX data outside of the program and pin it at the top of general chat.

I'm with you two. I just copied a doc I had showing the points needed. I made a few notes, wrote my name on top and put NA in a few places. That was my WISP. Like mcb39 said, if it's not good enough for them, so be it. Hey, it's a WISP.

You are speaking directly to me. As a warning. And I thank you because I needed to be reminded. I've been doing taxes since 1986 or 1987. On my own since I think 1990? I have brain fog right now but it's close. Many, many of my clients are about to be "fired." It's best for all of us. After almost 40 years? Time to put myself first.

i totally agree. I can remember working 11 hour days and drinking lots of coffee. I have been gradually cutting back the last decade and now I just work mornings

Only if you keep a contemporaneous log

Could be bad advice from the preparer; could be bad listening by the taxpayer. Just recently I had a client call me about a transaction which we had discussed 3-4 months ago. At that time she told me what a friend had told her about the taxation of the capital gains. I explained to her why that advice from her friend was dead wrong and I then gave her the correct information. On this subsequent conversation she repeated the bad advice to me, and when I corrected her she said "But I remember you telling me that on our last conversation." Fortunately I had made notes and more-or-less read them back to her. Either I'm a very bad communicator, she's a very bad listener, or (most likely) she only remembers what she wanted to hear rather than what was said.

I do not remember such a rough season as this year. Well maybe the stimulus seasons. But so many people this year forgetting documents !! Interest statements, investment statements, social security statements. And you call and no one ever answers the phone. You leave a message and they call back and ask what you wanted. Did you check your voice mail ??? No, they reply. So frustrating. Then they forget you need stuff and call and ask why its taking so long to prepare their taxes !!! Idiot... your suppose to get me documents !! I dont call then Idiots, but I sure a heck want to. So many other frustrating situations. Too many to list !! But something has to change. We need to cut way back and weed out problem clients. Been saying this for many years, but it has to happen. Time to change our pricing and business model. I think its time to loose all non 1040 clients and a few schedule C clients. And pain in the arse 1040 ones. We could raise our prices 30% and lose 30% in the process and make life so much easier. And at a 30% price hike, we would still be under the national tax prep average. We charge some clients the same we did 10 years ago !! Some even beyond 10 years !! But it has to change. Getting old and just honestly do not need the aggravation. Anyone else, have a crazy year ???

Well since I have already raised my fees and cut back over the years, my tax season has gone fairly well

New movie trailer: The Accountant ^2 Has promise.

"Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause said in a call Wednesday that the agency will give these employees the option to return to their jobs by April 14 — the day before the tax filing season deadline — according to IRS employees familiar with the call. The IRS also sent an email Wednesday afternoon, notifying the approximately 7,000 probationary employees it recently fired. “You are receiving this email as one of approximately 7,000 probationary employees who were separated from service and have been reinstated in compliance with recent court orders,” the email states. “At this time, while you remain on administrative leave, you will soon receive instructions for how to return on full-time duty by April 14." It will be interesting to see how many actually return to work? I am somewhat encouraged that they are following the court orders.

I don't answer my home phone unless I know and like the name on caller ID. I do answer my office phone, but if there's a pause before someone speaks, I set the phone down. People answer texts, but I won't use texts for tax information or any PII. I end up texting clients to check their email or my portal or to call me, depending on the issue. Or, some will answer if I tell them to expect me to call the week of May 5th, for instance. But, calling the IRS or states or large companies or insurance companies or...!!

I am thinking about doing all my business in the "other office" down the hall, and use it exclusively, that will resolve the issue.

Absolutely agree too. No job is worth sacrificing your health. I’ve learned to pace myself, only because my time the last two years have been tied up with caregiving at home, having a 101 y/o mother 232 miles away that I need to relieve my brother every month, who is ready to shoot himself. So finding a balance to safeguard my health was imperative. I found that balance and never felt better. I hope everyone here can do the same. Congratulate yourselves, you made it!

100% agree with this.

You have to consider as well that a smaller truck cannot haul heavy trailers. I have a client that has a nice 350 that I know is occasionally used for personal stuff (hauling the boat.) But if you consider how much a loaded trailer weighs when you load a piece of equipment on it thats weighing 20,000 lbs, you need a pretty big engine to move that thing, and stop that thing. Then add a few hills or mud, then he needs a big truck. He needs to keep track of usage, but this kind of truck is basically a piece of equipment. I tell my farm and contractor clients to take pictures of the trucks hauling something heavy so when asked I can let the auditor from NYC know that this truck has a purpose.

This is me but with a bottle of Chardonnay and wearing my flannel pants and I'm never coming out.

you put your right foot in, you take your right foot out, you put your right foot in, and you shake it all about! good grief.

Okay, now we're getting silly but isn't this a fun 'relief' at this season's point?

Good thing there is a handy supply of paper right there to document your business purpose... Tom Longview, TX

Is it "ordinary and necessary" to "do your business" during working hours? Asking for another friend. Tom Longview, TX

Mine is clients that make multiple times my income but complain they can't make ends meet. When I ask if they make a budget for expenses they look at me like I'm a space alien. Of course they never have the money to make estimates or adjust W2 withholding like I suggest. Yet they think they have the money to buy an expensive new car, live in a McMansion and take extravagant trips. Two of them just this week that look large 401K distributions in 2024 with no state tax withheld and only enough FIT to cover 10% penalty. Another one with a rather large inheritance held in a trust as apparently parent realized they can't handle money. Supposedly, EJ told him he doesn't pay tax on inheritance. He can't understand me telling him he's not paying tax on the inheritance but on what it earns as shown on K1. Since they know they owe I never see them until April when my tolerance level is below zero.

Sometimes clients hear what they want to hear. If other withholding or estimates were already sufficient for 2024 to meet the safe harbor, are you sure that the previous preparer didn't really say that if they didn't pay tax on the gain during 2024 that they wouldn't have the underpayment penalty? That could be the case here, a year later, especially when a client doesn't fully understand and aren't talking with the original messenger that can revisit the conversation and information or advice she discussed.

I did that this year with one client. Couple, he thinks I'm great, she doesn't understand numbers at all and is suspicious of everything. Plus she is (only vaguely competent) trustee of five family trusts left by a parent. Royal PITA getting anything out of them except "why aren't you done yet?" queries. Told them last year - after their payment checks cleared - that they needed to find someone else for this year. When this thread of "rough season" started up I realized the entire reason this season, while hectic and full of its own upheavals, seems so much better, is because this one family went elsewhere. And yes, husband called in January, asking pretty please if I'd take them back. Told him, very politely, no.

I would be in the $400-500 range too, depending on how much work I had to do on the rental and basis of stock. If the basis is printed on the broker 1099, that is less work than if the client brings in basis from an inheritance or older purchases where they've changed investment firms, etc. I had one that I started to list in the complaint topic and changed my mind. The guy did not return to me this year because I charged him $800 last year. He'd been a client for more than 10 years and I cut him big breaks on the calls and projections, but not on the returns themselves, and I still undercharged him. He also owed about $60K on the federal alone because he has huge bonuses and never calls, and does stupid things like using retirement distribs to purch the beach property, and underwithholds or has no withholding on that income. Tax prep and other work included were for: high income earner W-2, so also had Medicare add-on tax, but not even $1 of interest or dividends so no NIIT, Sch A with SALT and mortgage limitations, sold 2nd residence which also had extended calls to fill out the form to avoid the state tax withholding at settlement, purchased another beach house, this one as rental but with lots of personal use, and didn't agree with explanation of expense limitations and argued that, 3 retirement distributions with partial rollovers and minimum withholding of 20% in the 39% bracket. These partially used for new beach house/rental, a complicated projection with 3 scenarios for a possible early retirement. Sent me a 200+ page booklet of explanations of these deals that he then demanded answers for within a day (the week I had the flu too!), multi-state as DE resident and working in PA, out of state credit and a daughter's return that was PY DE, PY NJ, and worked in Phila while living in each of those states, and then worked in NY city once fully moved to NJ. So with all of that, it was parent's Fed, DE, nonres PA, 2 complicated projections, and daughter's Fed, part-year DE, part-year NJ, nonres PA, and nonres NY and NYC returns. Nine returns in total. His other adult daughter left too. Charged her ~ $500. Similar BS with multi-state: She works in PA, husband in DE, they sold home in DE and moved to PA during year, has 2 children for the CTC and dep care credits with the documentation and due diligence, unemployment, std deduction for federal but each itemizing for DE on a separate basis, plus they live in a PA jurisdiction that has local earned income tax. So that one was joint Fed, 2 separate PA, 2 separate DE, 2 separate locals and figuring the out of state credits on those was a PITA. Not a word from either of them to know why they were unhappy. Those are the type I typically never take back because they were unhappy enough to leave and not give any courtesy to me after more than 10 years as clients and lots of free advice. I hope they are happy with their new preparer and higher fees, and if they contact me in future I will joyfully and firmly say "NO THANKS."

Every. Single. Return has had issues. And I don't do very many basic w2 clients, so I expect issues. But really a lot more issues this year. I think we should just set up a zoom call with everyone and complain for a good solid hour - we're the only ones that understand our misery.

It's really crazy. I think we need to have a giant round table session (at Rita's burial ground ;)), or maybe a giant zoom call) just to discuss practice management. I've been working 90 to 100 hours a week since the first week of February, and I literally am getting too old for this. I feel like I can hardly push myself through this final week. I have good staff, but it's still just too much. I think others work faster than I do, and I need to learn efficiency steps. Last year I did 730 returns including extensions. This year, I'm at 525 so far and working as fast as I can. Client documents are delayed, and everyone just needs to talk to me for '5 minutes'. I feel like such a loser when I put someone on extension whose information was turned in during March. I set my deadline at March 7th for a guarantee of no extension, and I have passed that 'check-in' date, but people are still really good at making me feel bad, anyway. Thanks for listening. Yes, I like cheese with my whine. I do think some sort of 'trading trade secrets' meeting would be amazing. I'd host you all in Kansas ... you probably don't want to come in August, though ;).

I thought everyone knew that putting your password on the side of the monitor wasn't safe, you have to put it under your keyboard where it can't be seen. LOL.

Like Margaret, it's just me here. Anyone trying to access my stuff would need to get into my house - past locks and alarms - then into my computer (password protected) then into my secure drive (a different password) or my online portal (yet another password). WiFi is totally locked down, hidden, inaccessible. How is adding more "authentication" crap going to help keep anyone's stuff more secure? Answer: it won't. What makes good sense in a multi-person office, or large corporation, is simply stupid in a one-person operation and leads to the idiocy of passwords on post-it notes stuck to the side of the monitor.

Its bad enough to fill the form out online EVERY SINGLE TIME but most of the time when I get to the appointment they will ask me AGAIN if my address has changed (since I filled out the online form yesterday?) and so on. What a waste of time.

Our dentist's office is a sole proprietorship--not part of some national chain. There are two people working in the office. Yet when I call them there is a menu, "press 1 for appointments, press 2 for billing, press 3 for...." It's not like they have 16 different departments to route my call to. Grrrrrrr. Some of our clients have expressed surprise that when they call us a real person answers the phone. Sad.

First and foremost, she needs adequate errors and omissions insurance as well as regular business insurance, and a personal umbrella policy for however many millions makes sense. But in the past 30 years I've only done LLCs, which she could do and remain a sole proprietor. Whether it's worth electing to be an S corp is hard to say, but factors to consider are losing the home office deduction, paying for payroll processing and payroll tax returns, and paying for an S corp income tax return. With a service business, the IRS is going to want to see almost 100% of profit being taken as salary and not distributions.

Another moral: always owe a little bit, so you don't have to wait for your refund...

I made my own as well. Took it from the IRS prototype, changed it to meet my needs, and then made my employee/spouse read and sign it. Scanned copy in the folder somewhere - Where did I put that? Oh well, like all the 8879s that I sign that the IRS has never asked to see, I am sure I could do a search of my documents and find it if I need to. Tom Longview, TX

I wrote my own WISP; printed it and sealed it in plastic. If it's not good enough for them, so be it. I can step aside any time they want me to. And, of course, there is that unforgiving increase in the price of the program. ATX, as well and an email every other day reminding me that I should renew before the end of May. I have not even decided yet what I am going to do about next year. Pretty soon the phone calls will start.

You already received the best answer is to have client use IRS' Direct Pay. About the above statement, don't ever assume that a bank or credit union offers overdraft protection or that the account is of the type that even has that set up.

Ditto but it was $4 and on depreciation. Total difference on a long list of assets; he hand-calculated and I used software. Of course it made no change to tax. I later suggested he find someone closer to home and to my very great relief he did. Any engineer is a potential royal PITA client and treated (and priced) as such until such time (rare) as they prove otherwise. Engineers don't know the difference between precise and accurate. They are related but not identical. While I know the IRS truncates, I cannot stop myself from rounding "properly" - as rounding is different from truncating.

Of course, those really, really special people who turn 65 on January 1, start getting the over 65 standard deduction the previous year, when they are 64 the entire year. Unless they died during the year, then they don't get the extra standard deduction. Unless they died on 12/31, in which case they do get the extra.

I may use that on a difficult meeting tomorrow!

I'm out of gas. It seems to be more hectic this year but I don't know why. Maybe some are getting in here later. I'm not sure. I told myself I wasn't taking new clients. Then there was the son of a client, the daughter of a client, the parents of a client, fiancee of a client. Whoa, I gotta learn to say no.

I actually sold an old Compaq portable pc to a museum in California about 10 years ago. Was the size of a small suit case and weighed about 30lbs !! Sold it and some old Voodoo Video Cards to them. You know your old when your crap you bought new belongs in a museum !!

Tom, I just finished and efiled one yesterday. I went to 4684 Input. For my client I selected Income producing (her entire retirement plus all her investments), Type was Cash, her address, the original date of retirement and date the theft began. Long term and the original cost on lines 20, 23 (FMV) and 27a ($729,462). It flowed though to Sch. A and to page 1 of 1040 as itemized deductions. It shows on 4684 page 2 section b part I column A and flows to section !!. It was efiled and accepted. We shall see what next steps happen.

Dos !!! I remember when Dosshell came out (before Windows). Was so cool. Instead of typing in the command line to do things, you could create menus to do them. I think I still have all those MS Dos discs. Im a pack rat with computers. Still have old 286 systems with floppy drives. And a couple Ditto Tape Backup units. Feel sorry for my kids having to get rid of all my crap !!!

Might want to stock up on some printers now before the tariffs increase prices by 25-50%.