Leaderboard

Yes; us - the good tax preparers. Not the fraudsters (taxpayers, cheats, or 'preparers' in it to cheat). They make it harder & harder for us to help taxpayers (which helps t/p's and the IRS - with the IRS probably coming out ahead in that one), then wonder why we get testy.

I am just philosophically opposed to giving my face to a for profit company to add to their data base so I can continue to work in my chosen profession. I don't know what has gotten into the IRS that they think we are the problem. They know us. And the ones who are running Turdo out of the garage are not going to do this anyways? What in the world? Conspiracy theory Warning ****** The government promised to put as many people into ID.me when they signed the contract so ID.me would have a larger data base. End of theory***** How about requiring everyone to takes a tax credit to have an ID.me account and give their face to that company in order to get a tax break? I am so pissed I am not thinking straight. The IRS keeps shooting at the wrong targets. Tom Longview, TX

until ID dot me gets breached.

I would also be lost without this board. Thank you to Eric for keeping us going, & to Judy for moderating. You can make your donation automatic - annual, quarterly, monthly. Check the Donate link!

i have QB Pro 2019 on Win 11 with no problems. I use it only for my personal business accounting so cannot speak to any potential issues with payroll or other updates. In fact, I don't think it even updates any longer but it serves my purpose.

I just got it. Sent an email to my Congressman telling him if the rule goes into effect on July 1, I will not vote for him again. Tom Longview, TX

G2R Thanks for sharing this disaster with us. It certainly puts a different perspective on whether or not to use IP Pins

Exactly. If hackers can get into the Iranian equivalent of coinbase and make 90 million in digital assets fly into the ether, you think they can't get into ID.me? Tom Longview, TX

To be clear, the "ATX server" is a piece of software installed on your machines that needs to be running for the program to start. It has nothing to do with the term "server" used where hardware is designated as the server in networked installation (vs standalone). This is also different than the server at the processing center that the ATX program connects to via the internet.

I am not a techy type, so take this with a grain of salt. But I have found that the issue when the software won't open is the database is not started, or it needs to be restarted. If you can get to your control panel, check the status of the database for the year in question and the year before the year in question (for some reason if the year before you want to use does not have a running database the year you want will sometimes give you trouble). If that does not work, ask @Abby Normal That is what I do when I need to confess my ignorance. Tom Longview, TX

I'm using QB Premier Accountant 2017. I bought a new computer with Windows 11 in May and sent it and the old one to my IT guy to transfer everything. He struggled with my "real" software a LOT and I ended up on a call with Sage support last week because I couldn't access the payroll tax forms. There were quite a few questions when IT moved QB but he was able to make it happen and I've been using it daily for over a month with no issues.

I just bought a new computer to run W11 and had the old hard drive cloned over. Quickbooks Desktop 2019 still works fine on it. But like Catherine, I kept my old W10 machine just in case any issues arise with any software in the future. I plan to run it about every week to keep it updated until Oct 2025 (and beyond if I decide to take advantage of the 1-year extension I keep hearing about) Then I will just run it offline if necessary.

Umm, I thought the purpose of all this was to eliminate waste. Isn't paying people not to work somewhat wasteful? Just a short time ago we were elated that IRS finally got funding to increase staff so phone wait and processing times would decrease and audits would increase in areas we knew needed auditing. TAS was the place we went to when all else failed. Taxpayers are really going to feel this. They won't be able to get questions answered or problems solved, all the while knowing that others are cheating and getting away with it.

Posting in case anyone here hasn't read the email saying that ID.me will be required to log in to the PTIN and other IRS services.

Just saw that I can renew by mail. I think about 1 million people ought to renew by mail. That'll teach 'em. Then we can have all our clients opt out of efile and mail in returns with staples and staple checks to the returns and then send letters asking when the return will be processed and then send more letters asking for interest on the late refunds and swamp their whole system with mail. Not like I am being childish about this or anything.... Tom Longview, TX

Which sums up why this is the last place you want to have your photo. Imagine how much more your valuable your data is to advertisers when they know, say, your skin tone or whether you wear glasses, a tie, have freckles, bad teeth, or whatever AI determines about you from your laugh lines or nose hairs.

Some suggestions: 1. Run Admin Console 2. Make sure your ATX server is running. 3. Make sure your AV isn't blocking some file or process with those years. You may want to check for any files to excluded from the AV. Maybe start with whatever files or processes you have excluded in your AV, if any, and see if similar is excluded for 2020 and 2021.

The software should handle it, but: The recommended name is: PersonalRepresentativeCourtCertificate.pdf with a description of: Personal Representative Court Certificate https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/tax-year-2024-modernized-e-file-schema-and-business-rules-for-individual-tax-returns-and-extensions

OK. Was just brainstorming. My wife and I have found that having one another's Durable Power of Attorney simplifies so many tasks for us in so many (but not all) situations.

If you stick with W10, you will want to consider the Extended Security Updates (ESU), being offered by Microsoft. Looks like the paid version is $30 for one year for stand-alone computers - more for networks & multiple computers. There is speculation it will be extended beyond the one year, but nothing definite. (I plan to get the ESU for my old computer just to keep it safe if I need to use it with an online connection) But I wouldn't risk signing onto the internet with an unprotected W10 computer after Oct 13, 2025. Also, some software that's compatible with W11 may not work with W10. Lots of things to ponder here.

Hmm, with Drake I can name a pdf attachment anything I like and enter that name in a space provided within the input. As long as the input matches the file I've attached it goes though.

Thanks all! It seems promising that it may work. My main concern was losing past data, so I'm downloading 25+ years of data to Excel in various formats so I should be able to find prior info if needed. I don't use QB for billing or AP, so going forward if it doesn't work, I should be able to find something simple that will. Basically just need ledgers for various financial accounts and expenses classified by category. I'm a creature of habit and prefer to stay with what I know rather than new programs. Definitely don't want or need all the silly graphics and charts that much of the new stuff uses.

Tom this page should help. Also, did you write down or copy the recovery code at the bottom of the page during setup of the authenticator when you first paired your phone? CCH help says that is used to fix things when your phone is lost or stolen. You may have to go through the steps of unpairing, re-pairing. https://files.cchsfs.com/doc/atx/2024/Help/Content/Both-SSource/Login and Passwords/Manage Admin Authentication.htm

But who knows - I may take this as impetus to update my probably 10 year old W10 laptop with the flaky "n" key and nearly-unusable space key! Hey, it works fine on vacation with the plug-in keyboard...

I definitely would be forced to retire. I hope that everyone remembers Eric before you spend all of your profits. Also, a special Thank You to Judy for her pristine Moderation and all of the rest of you who reach out so generously to help those of us in need. I couldn't do this without all of you.

I've got personal stuff on QB 2021 on a W10 machine. If it won't work on W11, then that machine will get kept on W10 and I just won't use it online.

Maybe the emails are being sent in batches. Here it is for anyone that hasn't seen it yet.

It was Joe McCarthy. He was indeed great. I think he said his wife took the deferred resignation, also, but I'm not sure I remember. She prosecuted the Son of Boss or one of those schemes. They're both wicked smart and probably saved well for retirement or have already found consulting jobs. I hope they go into tax teaching.

Was that still Joe McCarthy? He was indeed great, very helpful and so funny that no one fell asleep during his portion of a seminar. He once told those "who have never been in an IRS return processing" campus, they really do take all the staples out and have papers scattered over the floor, which is why they request the same docs three or four times. His wife was an IRS agent. If she still was, maybe she's been downsized too. Tough to have both breadwinners in a family unemployed. And it's the IRS's and our loss to have so much expertise dismissed.

Well, they're trying to make it harder for those fraudsters to log into your account.

That was going to be my guess, but I would not assume until proven.

I'm holding on to Windows 10 as long as I can. Most of the software upgrades claim "to serve you better" but the reality is that the upgrades are for THEM and not for YOU.

Just a thought = would a Durable Power of Attorney enable you to use the VA Health system on his behalf? Or does VA have a way for him to name you as his designated agent? Insofar as ID.me and login.gov are concerned, they can be a little difficult to get set up, but I think its worth going to the trouble. I think I got each set up on a second or third try at most. The requirements are only going to get more and more strict when accessing government sites.

You need ID.me or login.gov to access SSA and IRS. I did both a few years ago. I don't recall it being too hard to do, but then I am fairly computer savvy.

I have QB2020 thru QB2023 installed on Win11 with no issues. My guess is that you could go back even further than QB2019.

You can't clone to a different OS (Win 10 to Win 11) because a clone is the entire drive including windows, so you would end up still on Win 10. You can copy all of your data folders, but you will have to reinstall all of your software.

This is why I use Quicken 10; the last year that it came on a CD. It works beautifully with all versions of Windows (including 11) so far and I never have to update. It allows me to create all the ledgers and accounts that I want and creates beautiful end of year reports that allow me to create tax returns right from the reports. No need to ever go online. It can still be found on Ebay if you want to pay the price. I can also import, export and backup accounts as I wish.

What authenticator are you using? Most have an export option. Download the app on new phone - sign in to the app. Go to the old app and export - should pop up an QR to scan on new phone.

I have not seen it, but then again I've been away for a bit and have not opened my work email except on my phone just to dump spam. Anything that looked real has been ignored. I really oughtta go look at the real stuff, I guess. Got all the mail opened & dealt with, so I'm running out of good excuses.

I got mine on Saturday.

Copied from the Tax Advocate's Mid Year Report to Congress: "One longstanding filing season challenge that remains unresolved is lengthy delays in resolving identity theft cases. There are two categories of identity theft cases. One involves returns that IRS return processing filters flag as potential identity theft; the IRS flagged about 2.1 million such returns. In these cases, the IRS sent a letter to taxpayers notifying them they had to authenticate their identities before receiving their refunds. The IRS typically takes several months to resolve these cases. In the second category of identity theft cases, a thief has stolen a taxpayer’s identity and filed a tax return using the taxpayer’s name and Social Security number. These taxpayers are victims and may also be experiencing the effects of identity theft beyond the context of their tax returns. Their cases are referred to the IRS’s Identity Theft Victim Assistance (IDTVA) unit for resolution. As of the end of the filing season, the IRS had about: 387,000 IDTVA cases in inventory, and the cases were taking an average of about 20 months to resolve. “These delays disproportionately affect vulnerable populations dependent on their refunds to meet basic living expenses,” the report says. In fiscal year (FY) 2023, 69% of affected taxpayers had adjusted gross incomes at or below 250% of the Federal Poverty Level." Sometimes my mind really struggles to understand this stuff

On 16 April I heard from our CT Stakeholder Liaison that he'd accepted Deferred Resignation and expected to be put on administrative leave shortly while being paid through September. By 9 May I heard from new Stakeholder Liaisons in NY (2) and NJ who are covering the northeast. I think CT's Liaison (who was great, by the way!!) was gone by 30 April. Probably the same end-date for the former NY and NJ Liaison's.

That's all correct and you don't need to do anything else. There is the question of basis in the S corp and whether any of those distributions are taxable, so be sure to do the basis calc on the K1.

20 months?!?!

Yes, shutting off your AV for five minutes or more might just do the trick.

He may well have some software that can extract registry entries and User folder data from the old computer and import/copy them onto the new computer that allows programs and data to be copied over without reinstalling the programs, but I'm not aware of any such software.

I may be using the wrong terminology when I said "cloned", but all I know is that my computer guy took my old W10 computer and a couple of days later gave me back a W11 computer with all my programs, data files, and everything that was on the original device. As far as I can tell, it's an exact copy except for W11. It has Drake 2013 - 2024, for example, as well as numerous other programs going back several years. Don't know how he did it, but so far I haven't had any problems. (But he also gave me back the original computer, which I've booted up just to be sure I have the backup I expected).

What is the ID.me thing anyway? Is it much trouble to do it? If required for the PTIN, I guess I'll have to do it.

And the burden of TAS failures and IRS administrative bungling falls upon the taxpayer.

It's sure not going to get any better. From the TA Mid-year report to Congress The TAS itself has been reduced by 25 percent. BTW, my understanding is that those who took the offer are actually leaving at the end of this month, though they will "remain on rolls" and get paid through Sept. 30.