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This past year one of my wealthier clients fell for one of those newspaper ads and purchased gold coins, the kind that are collectible and that there is no market for. He called and asked what I thought, but he'd already done it, although he didn't tell me. His wife told me later on at another meeting.

KC, maybe this thread belongs in the politics section since you took it to that with your second post that jumped straight to "hatred of conservatives" and your follow up post that included the phrase "typical small minded liberal, ad hominem attack". That seems like a big reaction to someone's questioning the validity of a story, don't you think?

I don't have any big hatred of the conservative talk shows or their hosts, but I have to admit that I had the same reaction that this story may be fabricated. Maybe it's to protect this person's identity, but because of the way this was written there's nothing in it that can be substantiated. To be totally fair to Mr. Beck, I'll go one step further and say that I would have had the same reaction no matter the source because I've seen too many instances of friends posting stories such as this one that get passed around on social media sites that are later found out to be totally false or fabricated. I shared a story 2 days ago that was a warning of a scam and within a few minutes one of my friends provided me with the facts that what I'd shared was not true at all.

Haha, my husband spent his youth living in Decatur, Illinois and followed the Chi White Sox. I don't need to tell anyone how bad their year was, do I? We've all but turned off baseball for the year. The Phillies are our closest local MLB team and they need also to rebuild the team with younger players. I think my husband probably dislikes both the Cards and the R Sox teams equally, and with FOX covering the series, I know that we won't be tuning in terribly much...or will wear out the "mute" button on the TV control if we watch at all. Neither of us can stand listening to Tim McCarver and Joe Buck.

Darn! I think you are correct, the picture must have been photoshopped. The date should be 10/21/2015. Oh well, it's a good reason to watch the movie again.

Look what happened yesterday -

Someone on the other board reported that it was the organizer update, and it created all sorts of problems that caused that particular person's system to start crashing again. They had to take all of their computers in the network offline. Message from Stephanie at ATX: from Stephanie B CCH SFS once you have ATX installed, you can get the latest update (12.19 in this case), it contains all of the updates in that one. this is what we have in 12.19 The 1040 Comprehensive Organizer and the shorter version - The 1040 Standard Organizer - are included in this release. Organizers can help clients organize tax information for the upcoming tax season. By adding an organizer to the client's return, the client's previous tax year information is populated in the organizer worksheets. Send the worksheets to your clients so they can provide you with the new numbers for the upcoming tax year stephanie

JohnH, you bring up an important aspects of being a good sales person, and that is knowing your audience and addressing their needs, wants, and concerns. A good sales person can be taught how best to present a product's features and benefits, but a great sales person will tailor the presentation to that potential customer. The ATX reps would be more effective if they know who has attended the sales conferences, knows the mix of returns we prepare, and the client base we serve. Knowing about the customer's needs makes it easier to get the add-on sales.

I'm not specifically picking on CCH, but that is unfortunately the case with all of the vendors. We preparers have only contact with the sales team that may not have all of the facts in place for us to make very informed decisions about our purchase, and the program we are given to test drive is from the prior year. With all of the problems that the ATX program had last year, I have to agree with Eric's statement in the last month or so that CCHSFS needs to go beyond their SOP to reassure their customers that things will be different going forward. Having a sales rep talk in generalities doesn't carry much weight at this point, especially after the repeated promises of fixes over the course of this last busy season.

I agree about going to an attorney that specializes in business, tax and estate planning to have the document written up. The accountant/tax preparer should possibly be involved to provide the attorney with information concerning the level of income of the company and the effect of the agreement on company going forward and in the event of a retirement or death of an owner. The OP said that these clients that he/she was concerned about were small business clients but didn't mention the type of entity that the business was. When deciding whether to use life insurance to help fund payouts made as determined by buy-sell agreement, we need to think ahead to the time that proceeds may be issued and the tax impact. Tread carefully when using life insurance to fund a buy-sell agreement involving a C corporation. It can give the corporation greater exposure to the corp AMT because of its effect on yearly book income, and the payout to a corporation at death can also trigger the corp AMT. A cross-purchase agreement can work there are only two shareholders where they maintain insurance on each other, but that technique does not work when there are more than 2 shareholders because of the transfer for value rule. Also, life insurance will cover death, but the company needs to consider how it will fund the payout to a retiring shareholder as well. Years ago I acquired a client whose existing stock redemption agreement had some big problems. Its valuation formula was poorly designed and had been worked out by the 3 owners. Whole life insurance was purchased by the corp with the corp named as the beneficiary, and the corporation would have paid a lot of money in corp AMT on the proceeds at death. This would have resulted in the corp not having enough to fully fund the redemption, and the widow would have ended up with an extended payout over years. This was far from what the owners intended or wanted. The entire agreement was redesigned with the life insurance placed in a partnership that would shelter the proceeds from the corporate AMT.

You or the programmers?

The few schema errors I've had have been invalid characters, usually in a name of a company or street address. I've seen them for an apostrophy, comma, & in the wrong place, etc. I found out that Drake doesn't like commas in business names or periods after the abbreviations like "inc." but the system gives a warning before getting to efile. Are there many manual entries on the 2555, or is it flowing from other sources such as the dividend input. If there aren't many manual entries, maybe you should try deleteing the 2555 input form and reentering again. Have you posted this also over on the official forum. If you can't find any invalid characters and reentering doesn't work, the ATX staff is addressing problems such as this if you can't find what's wrong. That board should be a lot quieter now that the 15th has passed.

I agree 100%, Jack. IRS also said the PTIN fee for what used to be free was to help pay for their program of testing and monitoring of CPE. Now that's gone and we are still paying. I do think the testing and monitoring will be back in some form though.

No, Jack. lol There was a comment about political strategy regarding the shutdown that didn't belong here so I removed it. If anyone would like to start a related thread about the ongoing effects of the shutdown as it relates to politics in the politics forum, that is OK. If it's something that directly affects tax preparation and what we will be facing as tax preparers, it stays here. There are some original posts like this one that are more of a PSA so that we are aware of a sitch.

I'd like this thread to stay in the general chat area so that all can see the delay in PTIN renewal. Let's not bring the blame game and politics into it.

Thanks for that reminder, Mr. Pencil. MAS, was the rep asking for clients' names, or was the rep only networking and marketing his/her services?

Well said, Marilyn and Jack. I've also had to care for aging parents, and I would never think of being paid or that my brothers and sisters need to contribute equal time either. I've heard them each say many times, "don't worry about it, Judy will take care of it" and that's ok too. I have a little more time to help Mom out than they do. We all pitch in, and I know that all I need to do is make the call and they would come at any time of the day or night.

Haha! Cute one, Jack. Now if only someone would invent a simple device that could be installed on public restroom entrance doors that would disable the phones! Do people not mind hearing that (couldn't resist, sorry ) or hearing a flush?!

Rich, I'm sorry to hear what your wife and you are going through, and you'll certainly both be in my thoughts and prayers. I know how difficult it is when a spouse is diagnosed with cancer and goes through its treatments.

Yes, the states are able to get the returns from IRS. I received state ack yesterday, and waiting on one last ack from DE. It's not uncommon for the DE acks to come back the following day, so I'm not concerned about it.

Something else to consider when evaluating other software is whether or not the company gives access to the prior year programs and how many years are made available. People file late, we file for carrybacks, and the need for amendments always comes up. Those long time users that renew with their existing software vendor will continue to have access to the back years and be able to file 3 years through the MeF as long as the return qualifies for that, obviously. However, for those of you considering a move away from ATX, if you don't renew with ATX for this coming year you will lose the ability to efile through the ATX's system. I know that Drake gives access to all the years back to 2001, but what about the other main vendors (Ultra Tax, Lacerte, Pro Series, and CCH for Taxwise and Prosystem fx) ? How many back years are made available?

If the return was efiled prior to the deadline, I believe you have 5 days to fix the errors and resubmit or 10 days to paper file.

My returns don't go on extension and almost all of it is completed before I get too busy. I operate as a C corp and also have another business that's a sole proprietorship. Both close out at year-end and all recs are done by third week of Jan, payroll returns filed and W-2s issued. The corporate return is usually filed in Feb. The input for the personal return is completed late Feb with the exception of one K-1 that usually arrives in early March. I enter that data, finish the states and send it on its way.

My last one picked up yesterday afternoon, efiled today and am waiting on state ack. Relief! Now to catch up on CPE.

Is it too irresistible for some to avoid it... like me and anything chocolate? Darn it, now I want a cookie.