jklcpa

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.

Please let us know what you find out. I purchased the unlimited usage for next year and haven't decided on research yet. I noticed that Drake's site does not list the research on their products' pricing page at this time.

Jack, I agree with you 100% about uninformed voters. I will never forget sitting in a jury pool in mid May, 2011 and waiting for selection when one young man said he was going to vote for Palin, all because she is good looking. My only guess could be that he had no idea that it wasn't an election year and not that Palin was not running. I was not directly in his circle of conversation, but no one said a word to him in response. I could only hope that those others were not as uninformed as he was, but I had serious doubts about them too. And Jack, I offer my apology to you for my saying you called our President disrespectful names. I thought you were calling him Honey Boo Boo. I *think* that is some sort of television show, yes? If it is, I haven't seen it as I don't watch much television. Some other member called the President some names, but I don't remember who it was now, but I don't think it's ever been you. I am sorry.

I am very calm and not ranting at all. You seem to be with your post in bold though. For the record, President Obama hosted, and attended, a picnic yesterday on the lawn of the White House for about 1200 military and their families, gave a short speech, greeted people at the rope line, watched the fireworks set off on the Mall, and celebrated his daughter's birthday. He had a similar picnic at the WH for military in 2012. You can google it and find the pictures from news media sites, or you can go to your official WH site and click on blog, scroll down and see the pictures and videos from yesterday's activities.

Jack, this isn't upsetting me at all. You may think and believe whatever you want to about any individual that holds public office. What I do have a problem with is you interjecting this into a thread that was intended simply to wish each other a happy and enjoyable holiday, and I suspect that your intentions are not only to voice your opinion, but also to stir up trouble in a thread created by Taxed. You may not like someone or their opinions, but after the heat that Taxed was taking earlier this year, let's be clear that the derailment of this thread has your name on it. Also, your same post appeared in another thread as a laugh. You could have also chosen to start a new thread to discuss the President as well, but you decided to put your passive aggressive BS in this thread instead. Another issue I do have a problem with anyone of any party talking in a disrespectful tone about any President. I know you will disagree with this and you will spew all of the hate that your side always does. Our President has an incredibly hard job to do, and calling our current President names such as Honey Boo Boo does nothing to promote your conservative agenda. I also think that this hurts your side. If you want to know what all the other Presidents did on their 4ths, lmgtfy: http://gurukul.american.edu/heintze/FourthPres.htm

Jack, give it a rest, please. Happy 4th of July, everyone. I hope you all enjoyed the day.

It also depends on how a person learns best because sitting in a live seminar is not the most effective for some of us. I believe that I learn best by reading the material and then taking the quizzes, and even better if I can spread the time out so that it isn't all at one sitting for those higher credit courses. My state used to limit the self-study credits to 24 hrs during each two year reporting period, and webinars were considered self-study. Because the seminar is now interactive with participants having the ability to ask questions, the state has changed its rule to consider live webinars as live group classes. I purchased the unlimited package from Surgent McCoy for $599 that runs through the end of this year and have already completed several seminars. My biennial reporting deadline is June 30th, so this means that some of the credits will go onto the next reporting period that ends in 2015. If I do some each month, then my per credit cost could be as low as $10 per credit hour compared to $33+ for the same live seminar sponsored by the state society where I have to sit next to people texting all day long, reading the newspaper, doing another self-study course at the same time, working on client work on their laptop, or snoring. Yes, I've had instances of each of those at every seminar! Other benefits for me compared to a live offsite seminar: I can take new courses that are more relevant to my client base instead of the state society courses that are the same ones over each 2 years, I don't spend money on wasted gas, no wasted time driving, and I don't have to try to make it home during the lunch break to give my dogs a potty break.