jklcpa

Brian (FinanceWriter), This forum is for tax preparers only, used to be for only those that used ATX but some of us have moved on to other software. Your profile interests says "For the tax professionals I train and advise..." and I've seen your site and blog. Also, your former and current siggie line contain an advertising link, and 3 of the 6 posts you've made include that same link to the educational materials site. Several of your posts almost seem canned as well. This is not the venue for you to use for free advertising, and we don't allow advertising on this forum.

JohnH, that could have been me! During college I worked as a sales clerk in a small retail store. Computerized cash registers were fairly new and the senior discount had to be entered before ringing any items, and because the seniors would forget to mention the discount until they were ready to pay, we were instructed to always ask before ringing the sale. Otherwise, we would have to void the entire sale and start completely over If they were entitled and didn't say so. Those over 60 were to get the discount. There was one lady that was prematurely gray and had enough wrinkles...you guessed it, she was very offended because she was only in her mid-40s! I thought she was going to slap me.

What about downloading the program directly from the ATX site? Would that work?

^ Yes, that, and by bringing in more users as beta testers expands their web so that those people will spread the word of their purchasing decision to a wider audience of colleagues, peers, and on forums such as this one.

Jack, you have no basis for saying this except to insult someone publicly. Please refrain from the personal attacks. Thanks.

Old Jack, while I agree with you that a sole proprietorship may keep a complete set of books including tracking the cash invested or loaned by the owner to the business, that really isn't necessary because at all times the cash belongs to the owner and does not affect the basis of the company. A sole proprietorship reports its activities on whatever tax form is applicable to each component of its activity. It could be Schedule C for its ordinary income from operations, Schedule B for interest or dividends earned on investments in its name, or on Schedule 4797/D if it sells fixed assets used in the business, 6252 if business asset sold is structured as an installment sale. The basis of a sole proprietorship is the basis in its underlying assets, and unless the purchaser assumes debt that is against an asset (for example, a loan on a fixed asset purchase) the amount of the debt is disregarded. For tax reporting when a sole proprietorship is sold, the seller is considered to be selling the assets of the business, not the business itself.

I'm not having any problem backing out from that site at all. I've viewed many videos from wimp and never had that problem. Hmm.

Yes, those hours do sound about right when comparing it to the time I spent. I checked everything that converted on every return. Have you considered converting some of the extension returns over and preparing those using 2012 Drake program?

I am locking this thread, the point of which was to ask whether we wanted a separate forum for the political discussions. That forum is now set up, so if you have specific topics or ideologies to discuss, you may take them there. A thread entitled "I was a ____ and switched my party affiliation and beliefs in line with the ________ because" would be worth the movie ticket and .

I'm picking myself up off the floor, not because of your statement of dependability, but because your firm (and you?) decided to make the switch. I think you'll find that your preparers will pick up on the input screens rather quickly, and the little tricks and nuances will come easily enough. Those should seem a very minor inconvenience compared to all of the workarounds that using ATX entailed this past season. I hope your conversion goes well!

You forgot the duck lips.

I disagree that assessing returns prepared by others is in any way good business practice. Giving a stamp of approval to a return not preparer by oneself opens up liability issues. What if that person giving the assessment fails to spot a problem? Doing this all for a small fixed fee is not worth the risk, in my opinion.

I haven't had any issues either. Is it possible that you submitted to the SSA twice for this EIN? After you submit, do you go back to SSA to verify the submission has been processed and complete? I do that to get printouts for my files. In that report, there is a more detailed report that can be requested, but it is still only the totals for that WFID with amounts shown as *submitted* and *processed*. If you don't handle many, maybe you should log on and click through the submissions to see if you somehow have 2 efiles for that one client.

I know, I had occasion to do this too, but I made the comment about the third party designee expiring because Taxed made mention of it being useful in an examination. This is the case with the returns being discussed in this thread, that they are more than a year past that date. By the time the notices come out, there is either a very short window where this checkbox would be helpful, or it is already beyond the one year.

... and sometimes they go to the mall in their uniforms and sit in the food court talking into their communicator pins.

Yes, that was a good one. Here's one for the dog lover/computer geek crowd. I give you the Interpet:

The third party designee checkbox is only valid for one year.

Yes, KC I agree. One of my most wealthy client and his wife didn't have wills until late last year. In the 20+ years that I've known and worked with these people, first at a firm I was employed by, and now in my own practice, no one could ever convince them to have wills drawn up including their attorneys. They are frequently dealing with the attorneys because of the many land lots and commercial property they own, but they'd refuse to discuss any type of estate planning. They are both now in their early 60s with no health problems. They both have wills now, and what spurred them into action was a visit from the husband's sister that lived in Europe. On one morning during the visit she woke up and was having a stroke, and once at the hospital the doctor's found the cause of the stroke was that she had cancer that had spread to every major organ. She died later that week with another stroke and other organs in failure, and she never left the hospital. Apparently she came for the visit to say her final goodbye. My client got the real eye opener with having to have her transported back home and help the remaining family start to sort out her financial affairs. My client probably wouldn't have a will today without some major event or health scare.

Jainen is correct on this handling. I have had 100% successful outcomes over many years when answering any correspondence with the IRS with this organized method. You must be succinct, very organized and get directly to the point. Make the trail of statements and documents being sent as organized and easy to follow as possible. Remember that the person on the receiving end hasn't had any clarifying conversations with the client or bank that you have. All they have is what is reported within their system, tax returns filed and your correspondence to make sense of it all.

Taxed, where is this you speak of that attorneys charge as little as $120/hr? Even here in little old Wilmington the tax attorneys are charging $330/hr and up, at least the ones I've worked with lately and that I trust to send my clients to. If a client here wants a larger firm with national name recognition and goes to Philly, well the price is higher yet again.

Yes, Eric, I think it's time for a separate forum where those few can argue to their heart's content. It used to be that KC would post her political posts or cartoons, and those were mostly ignored by some of us that don't share her views. Now we have many threads concerning politics and scandals, and we also have threads that start out having nothing to do with politics that suddenly morph into political arguments. Some threads that are meant as lighthearted offseason topics, such as Elrod's "What Were You Doing When This Happened" thread, that in prior years would most likely have received nothing but lighthearted replies and banter, have also turned quickly to politics. Then there are some threads that may even be posted by one side or the other seemingly trying to goad the other side into the arguing. I was fine with the ignoring the political threads and cartoons posted by KC and others, but now that is almost impossible due to the postings of a few. I'm tired of opening thread after thread that are nothing but a couple of people arguing politics. Let them have their own space.

No, it is considered unethical to "hostage" the records in demand for payment. If the client requests the records be returned, the CPA is to give them back.

I had some down time after tax season ended where I - caught up on my CPE before my 6/30 reporting deadline, shuttled my mom to a variety of places, doctor's appointments, and helped her with things around her house, did stuff around my house and didn't do other stuff needed to be done, stayed inside and watched the torrential rains and then the soaring temperatures, finished some knitting projects, made some lovely, soft handspun wool yarns for future knitting, some reading, and was lazy in between all of that. Now I'm back to being very busy with the office workload!

Catherine is correct that sec 1250 property sold at a loss is reported on the 4797 on page one. If there was any sec 1245 that went with the sale, you'll need to allocate part of the sale proceeds and expenses of sale to these items and report that on page 2 of the 4797. Also, the portion of the sale attributable to the land should be broken out because land isn't sec 1250 property, but since this was sold at a loss, it will ultimately end up in the same section of the 4797 anyway.

You need to follow the interest tracing rules for this. Set up a spreadsheet to trace how the proceeds were used, to allocate the interest allocable to each, and to properly account for the repayments. The tracing rules also have a specific order in which the principal repayment of the debt is applied. The $280K is in the investment interest category. If you are unsure, check out Pub 535 under the section "Allocation of Interest" and also at the bottom of that section for "Loan Repayment" for the ordering of principal application.