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If she were my *friend* I'd tell her that what she is doing is fraudulent, evasion of taxes, lying, and whatever other descriptive words I'd attach to the personal tactics of getting things for free like the hair in the food when dining out, and then I'd tell her that I'm not going to listen to it any more. After I said my piece, I'd hang up the phone or leave if this was a face to face. I would not want this person as a friend.

I think I'm going to adopt John's policies for almost all of my clients. My last client on extension picked up his return this afternoon, and I showed him the calcs of P & I that weren't included and told him to expect a bill. He's getting one anyway since he's not paying in full. State of DE has no way to add in the P & I to a return, so this method will be consistent with the state too. Now my only wish would be that DE would change the wording of their notice so that it doesn't say they've corrected errors in the return, when it's only a matter of assessing the additional interest that they don't allow the preparers to add in!

Michael's got it. It should be part of SOP to check for missing 1099s by looking at last year's return and asking questions and documenting answers. My guess is that we've all had clients tell us an account was closed and later find out that it did have some activity that affects the tax year we are preparing a return for. A couple of years back one of my clients thought he didn't have to give me his tax-exempt interest income, also t/e for the state, because after all, it's tax exempt right? He never had t/e investments in the past and this was a new investment for him that generated over $30K in t/e interest. I found out about it in the course of discussing the sale of real estate he had earlier in that year and because I didn't see any bump in other investments or increased investment income.

For this last return I'm working on, I think I'm going to print out the interest and late payment penalty that is calc'd through 10/15 but then delete the calcs and go with the return and instruction letters showing only the tax and 2210 penalty. This client is smart and will understand it, and since he is still only able to make a partial payment of about 35% of the balance due and will be requesting an installment agreement, more interest and penalties will be added anyway. Most of the time I include the penalties and interest even though I know that the client may get a notice adjusting it by a small amount for the difference in the # of days since I don't always use the exact day that the payment is posted to the government's system, but it's better than them getting a bigger notice if I don't include it at all.

I can't tell you how best to actually pay the employees since the company can't open a bank account, but I think the fact that you are unable to obtain the EIN would fall under a reasonable cause for not being able to pay the tax liabilities. From circular E (bold is mine): Penalties may apply if you do not make required deposits on time or if you make deposits for less than the required amount. The penalties do not apply if any failure to make a proper and timely deposit was due to reasonable cause and not to willful neglect. The IRS may also waive penalties if you inadvertently fail to deposit in the first quarter you were required to deposit any employment tax, or in the first quarter during which your frequency of deposits changed, if you timely filed your employment tax return.

Some of my larger business clients that have partnerships or corps make large equipment purchases where it's easier for me to project out the depreciation and analyze whether or not to take sec 179, or how much 179 to take by keeping the fixed asset schedules up to date. Then there are the hypotheticals where a client calls in when he gets offers to purchase one of his commercial rentals (shopping centers). Those numbers are pretty big, and I need accurate data if I'm going to project out his tax impact on the potential sale. That DSII program will handle the bulk disposal and future depreciation with ease. It has a variety of sort/print options that make my life easier when doing my financial reporting or budgeting for clients that have retails stores with multiple locations and multiple types of assets too. Keeping it up-to-date is easiest for me and meets the needs of my clients best.

I don't know what a new user would be charged. My renewal price is due in a couple of weeks at $328.

Joel, I don't do that many, so I used the fillable forms for this year because I used Drake on a PPR basis this past season. For next year I purchased it on an unlimited basis, and I'll probably use their CWU component. At first I didn't realize, but it is possible to use the CWU like a fillable form without entering all detailed write up. It does require that you sign up for the IRS FIRE system with a user # assigned. I still have to do that.

Does anyone here not have the tax prep program calculate the interest and late payment penalties on the extended returns and let the IRS calculate and assess it instead? Those figures only show up on a worksheet that isn't sent with the return and isn't shown on the bottom of pg 2 of the 1040 like some of the programs did in the way back.

Agreed, and I don't want to know the client's log in or password information or have them enter it on my system either.

The warning system applies to the entire ATX Community in an attempt to keep things friendly. Here's how it works: Any warning you receive will expire after 30 days. When you get a warning, you will not be able to post again until you acknowledge that the warning has been received. If you accumulate three warnings within a 30 day period, you lose the ability to post for 3 days. Every warning received above 3 removes posting ability for three days. The only way to reduce your warnings is to behave yourself and let them expire after 30 days. All of these things are automated by the system, except for the actual handing-out of warnings by the moderators, who will do their best to be fair and consistent.

The report function works by alerting the site administrator, Eric, and the moderators of problem postings, and it gives us a visual indicator on our main page when new reports have come in without us having to read every topic or postings within them. The report is specific to the post , the system references it automatically, and gives us a link directly back to the reported post so we don't have to search for it in order to see it. If multiple members are each sending reports on the same post, the system groups all of the reports for any one thread into one line item and gives a tally. From there, we can look at any comments that may have been sent, and gives us the chance to decide if a warning is warranted. Using the report function doesn't hurt the member whose post it is, and it doesn't cause the system to automatically generate the warning point. When "report" is clicked on, it opens a box to enter a comment about why you are reporting that post. Comments may be helpful for us to know your feelings but aren't necessary. It could be some short phrase, for example:, advert by spammer, attacking another, vulgarity. It doesn't have to be short, but it could be that easy, and it's easier for us to all see what the group thinks are problem posts. Remember that Eric may not spend much time on here and he certainly skips many of the tax topics because taxes aren't his thing, and moderators time may be more limited once the busy season rolls around. We might miss postings or the topics in some of the forums we don't frequent regularly line the alternate vendor subforums, but some spam was occurring there that could easily have been brought to our attention. People have been using it, and it is a lot easier for the Admin and moderators than to have each of us getting separate PMs, having to search for the post in question, and then for us having PMs back and forth. No one should feel like they are being a tattler or whiner if they report a post. If anyone here thinks he or she is being attacked, that person shouldn't feel like they are being a whiner or being too sensitive by reporting a post they feel is an attack. That is what the report function is for.

I do the same as Jack, John and Lion.

The report function works by alerting Eric and the moderators of problem postings, and it gives us a visual indicator on our main page when new reports have come in without us having to read every topic or postings within them. The report is specific to the post , the system references it automatically for us, and gives a link for us directly back to the post so we don't have to search for it in order to see it. If multiple members are each sending reports on the same post, the system groups all of the reports for any one thread into one line item and gives a tally. From there, we can look at any comments that may have been sent, and gives us the chance to decide if a warning is warranted. Using the report function doesn't hurt the member whose post it is, and it doesn't cause the system to automatically generate the warning point. When "report" is clicked on, it opens a box to enter a comment about why you are reporting that post. Comments may be helpful for us to know your feelings but aren't necessary. It could be some short phrase, for example:, advert by spammer, attacking another, vulgarity. It doesn't have to be short, but it could be that easy, and it's easier for us to all see what the group thinks are problem posts. Remember that Eric may not spend much time on here and he certainly skips many of the tax topics because taxes aren't his thing. I might not read some of the topics in the alternate vendor subforums, but some spam was occurring there that could easily have been brought to our attention. People have been using it, and it is a lot easier than each of us getting separate PMs, having to search for the post in question, and then for us having PMs back and forth. Also, no one should feel like they are being a tattler or whiner if they report a post. If anyone here thinks he or she is being attacked, that person shouldn't feel like they are being a whiner or being too sensitive by reporting a post they feel is an attack. That is what the report function is there for.

If that download from Scottrade as a pdf is in the same format as the 8949, entering the totals and attaching the pdf would work too.

Scottrade allows the year end tax documents to be printed as pdf files from their site. Why can't you get the pdf and convert it to an excel worksheet?

Taxed, because late in the year of 2011, Lion's client raised her withholding to 47% that was supposed to be only on her remaining paychecks until the end of that year that was to cover the tax on all the investment income for the year of 2011. She forgot to go back to her normal withholding in 2012 and now has the big refund.

For my last return, the client is coming in early Sunday afternoon and owes similar amounts, and we've already discussed his need for an installment agreement. He couldn't give me a time but that isn't bothering me. My husband has to work this weekend so it doesn't matter to me.

How much of a win is that really though? They usually ship the program sometime around Thanksgiving, so you'd have it for 2 weeks with hardly any forms to test with. I never loaded any of the early shipments until I needed to prepare W-2s and 1099s. I got an email from the Chief of Technology, or some title close to that, but I haven't received any offers. My account rep left sometime before Feb 2013, and a rep did call in late April trying to get me back and then got really nasty with me when I said I was considering other programs. Yeah, that's the way to win back a customer for sure! Heck, this reps call came in only a couple of weeks after receiving my refund that I had to call repeatedly about.

Am I the only one that has run into road blocks from the brokers where they've flat out refused to give the data in spreadsheet format? I have not been successful in getting this data from any of the brokers my clients deal with. The last one I asked said it was because "they didn't want anyone 'manipulating' the data." Yet, the detail info given with the 1099B and its totals didn't tie in because of a handful of transactions from cash in lieu of dividend payments and return of principal. It would have been so much easier to add these into an existing spreadsheet.

Joel, I use the same name on the Drake board. I only have a handful of posts over there though. I read some posts early on last season that helped me get over the humps as I eased my way into using the program, and other than that I only had to call twice with very specific state related issues that I thought would never receive an answer.

I agree with all of that, Joel. I, too, have always had a separate program for depreciation because I need more flexible and extensive reports for my accounting clients. I have the Fixed Assets program from Tompson Reuters, which used to be called DSII (Deprec. Solution II) from Creative Solutions. The Fixed Assets II has become the depreciation module that integrates in with Ultra Tax.

Joel, I'm not sure if you are asking me or someone else. I've renewed with Drake for the coming season and was only posting so that others could see the deal that was offered in case anyone here missed seeing it.

Ah, the dreaded Dome books. I hated those things, but you are right about it being better than nothing. Haven't seen one in years, but I do have three clients that still insist on using those old Safeguard One-Write sheets. Two are very well done, but one is horribly mess, AND she uses something like a Dome book for her payroll summary because her writing is too big to fit the numbers into the tiny blocks meant to for the gross and withholdings! All of the info is on there, but it is so much harder than it has to be because this person makes a mess of it. And guess what she has - a hair salon!

Someone over on the official forum posted that their rep gave them a price of $895, processing of $69 and sales tax of $58 AND was given a deferred payment, so it was only going to cost this user $127 to try out the program by paying only the processing and tax. He also asked if the sales tax would be refunded if he declined to use if after testing it out. He's waiting on an answer about that part.