taxxcpa

If they really want to make it hard they will make you log in every time you prepare a tax return. This must be their idea of making it more 'user friendly.'

Visually impared? What's next, mentally impared IRS employees?

I would first attempt to efile it without entering the date to make sure the only error was absence of the date. Then I often had to wait a few days before the signed copy of the Form 8879 was returned to me and would then enter the date and efile it. Sometimes it got rejected because of an update in the interim. Since I paper-file the majority of the tax returns I did not do daily updates since the updates have little or nothing to do with the accuracy of the return--only with efiling. If the updates really improved the forms how could forms before the update be accurate? Either there was something wrong earlier or the update was of little or no value. When I used Intuit, I believe their updates were automatic and done in the middle of the night while I was asleep. Aside from your claim that the updates were a form of improving something, I would agree--if you are going to efile with ATX you should update daily and ATX is a lot less expensive than some of the other programs. ATX had a lot of advantages and was very customer-oriented up to last year. I anticipate that they will be even less helpful in the future. Without the message board, customers lose all the benefits of William Tasker's comments in response to message board questions. Fortunately, you will still be around on this message board, so, despite ATX's inaccessability, most user questions will still be answered by you and others on this message board.

I would strongly recommend TaxAct if you did not have to prepare any Texas Franchise tax returns or returns for states which TaxAct does not support. I gave up on ATX after they dropped the message board and were gobbled up by a larger company that has bigger fish to fry than the ATX-type customer. I was also alienated by their constant updates which often caused an efile that had been acceptable a few days earlier to be rejected when submitted. I am switching to Drake. The only thing I don't like so far with Drake is that you have to get a TCC to efile 1099s and you have to enter seller-financed mortgage interest income on one single line as if it were from a 1099INT. There are also a few getting-used-to-it problems that are involved in making the changeover.

A sentence is a word you should not end a sentence with. That is the kind of pedantry, up with which I will not put.

The proper accounting would be to set up the loan: Debit Cash $XXXX Credit Note Payble to the Owner $ XXXX To repay the loan: Debit Note Payable to the Owner Credit Cash To pay expenses with the money received from the loan: Debit Expense or Asset account Credit Cash When the Owner pays his credit card, there should be no entry on the books of the business. Of course, if the credit card were in the name of the business, it would be different, but that is not the situation as I understand from your question.

I switched to Drake. They have a day-long seminar and charge participants a fee. They hold the seminars in several different locations, one of which is fairly near where I live so I will probably attend and pay the fee.

You can't blame the employees for upper management decisions. The people to blame for all problems with ATX or any other large organization are never the ones you reach when you call on the phone. Once I needed to talk to someone and was told to call Clint Murchison. Back then I was dumb enough to think I would be talking to Clint himself. However once, when I worked for the State, I was trying to locate someone whose only known address was a post office box. I was told that I could call and ask for Dan Quill who was the San Antonio Postmaster. I called and left a message. I didn't expect a reply, but several hours later Mr. Quill, himself, called and gave me the address, which I located in the phone book. When I called, the answer was, "Hello, this is Old Man Adcock." I think his son probably ran the business.

Once I got a hair cut from a barber who had shaky hands. When he got to the part of shaving around the sideburns, I thought I might leave minus an ear. The way he did it was to steady his hand that held the razor with his other hand and he managed to leave my ear intact. Fortunately I didn't have to go back to his shop for my next haircut.

The stock market always goes from bull market to bear market. The longer the bull market lasts, the nearer we are to a bear market. We have had a fairly long bull market this time and a bear market is lurking somewhere, maybe right away, maybe later. I've unloaded most of my stock-related investments before the plunge arrives. I'm stuck with some real estate I can't sell and will be out about $10,000 per year in taxes if it stays on the market for a year or two. I will invest in an "ultra short" real estate ETF as a hedge. The day before the Friday rally, this ETF was up about 8% in a single day. Most of that gain was wiped out by the Friday Fed rate-cut rally. For most people I think the best strategy is to sell all stocks and go into the money market or short-term CDs.

Apparently he was playing Devil's Advocate. He was trying to see if anyone would quote some official source which describes it as a tax rather than as a penalty. In some of my experience, I've noticed that court cases often lean more heavily on the letter of the law than the spirit of the law. But nowhere in official or unofficial tax reference material is the early-withdrawal "penalty" actually described as a penalty. Unofficially, however, the tax on early withdrawals is usually called a penalty. If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? He still has only four legs since calling his tail a leg does not make it a leg. If you call a tax a penalty, does that make it a penalty?

You really are convinced that the tax on an early withdrawal is a penalty and the "ambiguity" provides ground for a claim for damages even though the client owed the money anyway. Apparently there are several others who agree with you and if you haven't seen the flaw in your logic by now, then you cannot be convinced, so no further discussion seems justifiable. Both sides have been presented about as well as they could be presented.

I WOULD pay the interest even though it converts the late payment portion to an interest-free loan. Why should a client be forced to pay interest unless he wants to postpone the payment? When I get a credit card bill, I have a choice: pay on time with no interest or pay late and pay interest. Unless my bank balance is too low to pay the bill, I pay on time since I have no desire to pay interest on money I am able to pay on time. Payment of interest by a client should be his choice, not the tax preparer's. However, if you do not offer a guarantee, then you probably have no legal liability to reimburse the client for the interest.

According to your logic, JH should pay all "penalties" including the "tax" on early withdrawals which you consider to be a penalty. Therefore even if the "penalty" had been correctly shown on the original return, JH should pay it??? Even if you can somehow read that interpretation into the JH guarantee, I cannot believe any court would uphold any such play on words and hold JH liable for an amount clearly owed from the word 'go' by the client. It is analogous to the concept of the "letter" of the law and the "spirit" of the law. The intent of JH's guarantee is to reimburse the client for any additional expense due to errors made by JH. If an 'error' does not result in any additional expense, then it is hard to justify JH assuming such an expense. If an item of income was reported on the wrong line, but reported in the correct amount, would you assume that JH owed the tax related to that line on the form?

It is only logical to conclude that JH should only pay any amount over and above what the client would have owed if the 10% early withdrawal tax had not been omitted. The client owes the 10% and if JH pays the interest plus any late penalty, the client, in effect, has just received an interest-free loan of the 10% early withdrawal tax.

October 15? All my clients think the deadline is August 15.

My favorite was a guy who called and told me he had an opportunity to get married and wondered if that would be a tax disadvantage. I told him that getting married should not be based on tax implications.

Sluggo did have a recent post on the TaxBook web site, but he has slowed down to a shadow of his former eruditation.

All you have to do to earn the $80,000 is to warm the globe. Sounds like an easy job. All you need to do is sit around your office, drink coffee and let the sun do all the work.

The annual gross income would be a more significant factor than the number of clients. Also, you should consider whether one or two large clients constitute a major portion of the income. If they didn't stay, you would likely overpay. However, if the clients are all about the same fee-per-client, then most would probably stay with you. Often you pay a percent the first year, then a percent of gross receipts for the next few years which would reduce the cost since the gross would decline if clients dropped out. You might also consider his fee structure--is it too high or too low?

The alignment is a major problem, but you can e-file W-2s and 1099s which eliminates the alignment issue and the red scannable forms. The blanc-and-white forms you give the employees and employers print OK.

I believe they are now working for the IRS. Jerome will soon be District Director. Jerome is real smart.

There would be a lot of UBI from selling drinks at the VFW. Also there may be slot machines and a lot of other sources of income unrelated to any non-profit aspect of the organization. Income from dues may be in the non-profit category, but that is probably only a minor part of their income.

The best flip-flopper is the one who will win the election.