taxxcpa

I took their free "Sale of Home" course. You might try the freebie before you decide.

Sign in men's room: We aim to please. You aim too, please.

I make less from tax preparation than the average welfare benefit. Welfare benefits are higher than the average social security benefit for people that have worked all their lives. If I hadn't saved and invested for retirement, I would be living on social security supplemented by a few bucks from tax and accounting work.

They no longer check your ID if you order a beer. I was in a liquor store the other day and saw a sign that told employees to check everyone's ID that looked like they were under 30. They didn't check mine. I have a daughter that is over 30 and people still think she is in high school. (She IS stil in school--she is the principal).

Maybe there should be a repeat of this poll in November. Some of us may change our minds between now and then. Others who are presently undecided might reach a decision by then.

Hopefully, all of Anthony Weiner's supporters will post their favorite pictures of the Weenie man.

Or bombing your buildings.

Two Iraqi spies met in a busy restaurant after they had successfully slipped into the U.S.A. The first spy starts speaking in Arabic. The second spy shushes him quickly and whispers: "Don't blow our cover. You're in America now. Speak Spanish."

A lot of people just read the newspaper and vote the way the editorial page recommends. Locally the newspaper tends to support the incumbent regardless of whether they are liberal or conservative. I think they want to support whoever they think will win regardless of whether they really believe he is the best candidate.

Contact Tim who prepares both US and Canadian returns. He lives in Canada. http://taxtim.ca/

While there are pros and cons to mandatory retirement ages, it seems that a good alternative might be to permit partners to cease being partners at a certain age but remain as employees. I don't think a partner is an employee, so rules applied to employees should not apply to partners. What's next? Mandatory retirement ages for sole proprietors? It might be argued that a partner in a Big national CPA firm or law firm is more like an employee than a partner in a business established by the owners themselves.

I've received legitimate requests of this type, but I explain that I cannot provide such information, but will e-mail it to my client, password-protected, and, if the client so chooses, he can forward my e-mail to the requesting party. Even if the client, himself, requests that I provide tax information to someone, I follow the same policy, and let the client forward it.

The biggest problem with our system of government is career politicians and their need for the financial support of major contributors. Even the best of our politicians should be replaced after feeding at the public trough too long. What we need is term limits: one term in office and one term in prison.

Be sure to log in to the Drake Forum and read messages from other people who have switched from ATX. You may have to call Drake support to get a password to enable you to log in. Also read messages about the macros and messages about the client status manager. You will also probably want to read about e-filing 1099s, W-2s and 941s. Most of your questions can be answered if you post them on the forum, but first you could use the 'search' function to see if the question has already been asked and answered by others.

This makes a good point: The parasites are not the fat-cats, but the "entitlement" do-nothings. That is not to say that everyone who receives tax-paid benefits is a parasite, since there are some who are mentally or physically incapable of doing anything productive. the Tea Party movement can be accurately defined as a workers’ revolution. Karl Marx, were he alive today, would approve. At least he would if he was able to follow his own theories to their logical conclusion. Unfortunately, the arc of history has exposed an untenable logical paradox at the heart of Marxist theory: What if the “workers” — the actually productive people in society whom Marx assumed were motivated by resentment — instead were motivated by a desire for self-determination? What if the “parasitical class” was not merely (as Marx posited) the do-nothings at the top but the do-nothings at the top and the bottom?

Most 84-year-old ladies wouldn't be aware of tax implications that would affect their estate tax since most don't anticipate having much of an estate.

Intelligent debate tactic: Don't attack the message, attack the messenger.

Here is a link to Drake's pricing: http://www.drakesoftware.com/site/products/PricingPurchasing.aspx $1095 for unlimited returns plus Client Write-up (for payroll, 1099s, W-2, 940s and 941s.)

The EIC should be a "non-refundable" credit.

I saw it coming when they dropped the ATX forum before the end of the tax season several years ago. That convinced me to drop ATX. For years, it had been the best software available and had excellent customer support.

There are published software evaluations that I've seen on the internet. Talking to sales reps might help get the pro-side, but you could also talk to users of various software to get their evaluations.

Drake provides several macros, and you can create your own. I have macros to answer the foreign interest questions, a macro to insert my PIN and the clients' PINs,and a macro to identify Forms 1065 as SMLLC (and prevent filing it since it is only needed to flow into the State Tax return). I have one that is needed for my PIN signature in the case of someone who opts out of e-filing. I have another one for filing an extension request with zero payment. I have several others that are more-or-less unique to my needs. I even created one to fill out most of the EIC due diligence questions--although I don't do EIC returns. Another feature is the Client status manager: In addition to the ones Drake provides, you can add one to indicate that you mailed it to the client, you e-mailed it to the client, your client is paper-filing, an extension has been requested. The CSM has a column for your billing, and one for payment received which you can enter and a column for balance due from the client. You can create and print reports indicating name, address, SSN, e-mail address and telephone number of clients. There are so many features that I'm still learning and making use of new ones every year. The downside of all of the above is that it takes a while to learn to implement them. Also, you can use Drake's CWU to keep up with monthly, quarterly and annual payroll totals and e-file 940s, 941s, W-2s and 1099s. CWU can also be used for bookkeeping work, but I would not recommend it since it is almost like having to enter everything like a general journal entry.

There was one person on the Drake forum who said he would not renew with Drake. Everyone else indicated that a one-time problem, as bad as it was, was not a reason to switch. Drake probably had thousands of calls and was unable to handle all of them and, as one Drake user pointed out, he would rather have them working on fixing the problem instead of answering telephone calls. Drake finally got things working about 11:00 P.M. at which time I was sound asleep since I sent my last transmission before the system went down. If Drake had multiple problems, it would be a good reason to switch, but switching for a one-time problem would be like one of your clients switching if you made a one-time error in preparing their return. A week or two earlier, all of Drake's web sites were not working. They claimed the problem was not within Drake, but elsewhere on the internet. At that time I could access any web site other than Drake's. A day later, I I could not get on the internet at all--to Drake or anywhere else. An hour or two later the internet was up and running again. There is always a risk that massive last-minute filings could overwhelm either the IRS or the software provider, so people who wait until the last minute to file or request an extension deserve at least equal blame.

Almost all tax software companies will give you a free copy after tax season. Once I got proseries, TaxAct, Lecerte, Drake and others that way.

If, by transaction type, you mean long-term or short-term, it is almost always a short-term sale even if he bought the option before he sold it. If he sold it short, either as a covered option sale or an uncovered option sale, it would always be short-term. A covered option would be a situation in which he owned the stock on which he sold a call or a situation where he had sold the stock short and was selling a put option. Uncovered would be in the case he was neither long nor short the stock on which he was selling a put or call option.