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Marilyn, thanks. I am still thinking the box will be ok for me and as far as checking it for papers, I can do that daily when I go out for the regular mail delivery. We have a decent setback from the road of about 80 feet and live in a fairly quite, semi-rural area, and I can make the box somewhat hidden by putting it a little further back so that the arborvitae (sp?) will hide it from direct view from the road. I, too, have had the plastic bags hung on door knobs, payroll "Dome" books stuffed in the actual mailbox before mail was delivered (thank goodness the postal worker didn't take it!), and this latest was a W-2 stuck in the back corner of the front porch. I haven't had anyone put documents in the gas grill...yet!

No! What did ATX tell you to do after you got them on the phone?

I still have update #9.

Joan, you are correct that forms are included in draft form, but my main point was that if the ATX program comes out even in mid-Nov, that only gives those trying to evaluate Drake's software 2 weeks at most before the final deadline to request a refund from them.

I've already have it in rents and the return is on extension anyway. The client is coming tomorrow to pick up the corporation's work and he is going to take the 1099 back so that he can call the state to try for a correction. At least the extension gives us time for that.

Yes, I do have a heater. I don't work well with numb fingertips and really cold feet.

Storm doors on the front and back. No way to put a storm door on my office because the steps into the office have no landing and I'm not spending to have steps redone. The office would be cold anyway because of the door opening when people come in. Plus, the office is the room furthest away from the furnace.

I started a new thread with a picture. No way I'm putting a slot in a door that leads directly to the outside. Besides, a large package of tax papers could crush one of my dogs. Smallest is 3.75 lbs soaking wet.

I've wanted to do this for a while now. Some of the clients I've mentioned it to thought it was a good idea. My office door is directly to the outside, so I don't want to put a permanent slot in the door. I'm cold enough already and my office is the coolest room in the house. I have a front porch that is covered, but I'm not too keen on having everyone walk up to the front door either. I like to keep the personal part of my house as off limits as is possible, even though that's hard at times. I do warn people that if they stop by unannounced in the summertime, they might be hailing me down from the large mower out in our field. So anyway, back to the point of the dropbox, I'm considering purchasing a locking mail box from the home improvement store. I looked at the nicer ones, and with the sale price it would run in the $100-120 range before the post and other hardware. What do others of you use? Here's a picture of the side of my house. I was thinking that I could put the box at the end of that short section of sidewalk is where that hosta is growing, next to the steps railing on the right side.

I'm not keen on putting a permanent slot in the door. I'm cold enough without adding to that, and my husband is not handy as far as doing something like this. I'm considering a locking mail box that I could get from a home improvement store. I'm going to start a separate thread. Thanks for the input!

Client owns the land and building that he rents to his closely held corp that operates a gas station, so this property is already reported as a rental on his personal return. In 2012 he granted a temporary easement to the state DOT so that they could park their repair equipment on his lot at the end of the day and weekends while they worked on the road and intersection nearby. It was only for a few months and my client received $1900 that I know should be reported as ordinary income in the form of rents. My problem is that the State reported this on 1099-misc in box 7 for nonemployee compensation. I'm drawing a blank as to how to show this so that the IRS isn't going to send a CP-2000 and assess SE tax. What to do?

TonyP, your plan sounds reasonable except that before 12/1 the only information you will have about ATX is either from ATX itself or from beta testers that choose to report in. In past years the ATX program was released around the end of Nov or early December, but it hardly contains any of the forms. Will that be enough for you to decide between continuing with ATX and requesting the refund from Drake?

I've wanted a drop box and haven't gotten around to it, but this year will be the year! Quite a few clients have their package of documents nicely organized and we mostly chat and catch up with each other rather than looking at the papers. I've asked those clients and some others, and they said they'd have no problem with a drop box and thought it was a good idea. It will free up a little bit of time for me, and the client can come by at their convenience. Win-win!

I've had the same experiences as JohnH and I'm not a plant either. Vityaba, Drake does have drop down choices in the depreciation. If you don't know what to select, you can press F1 and a more detailed list with descriptions will appear. You can also right click in the field for more options. You can right click in any blank non-input part of a screen and it will bring up additional options for the screen as well.

Yes, absolutely. I won't charge him for this return. We've actually given him at least 2 inexpensive bikes over the past few years and keep fixing bikes for him for free. He doesn't have a place to put them inside, and even though we lube everything really well each time he comes by, they eventually rust up and are not worth fixing any more. We usually have a bike that we've picked up at a yard sale that we give him, either as a loaner or just give it knowing he'll need it until it too is so rusty to be beyond salvaging.

Quote: <<I am willing to bet joanmcq did not know that. She is not the type to put a statement out there that she knows to be untrue. I don't always agree with her politics, but she has always been a stand up kinda person on this board. >> Agree with Bulldog Tom. Sometimes you really have to follow the money trail back to see what some of the tax-exempts' real agendas are and who's really behind them.

Nah, I kind of know where the grandparents live, not sure of the exact house. I'll probably see him around soon enough and will deal with it. It's just not what I expect to find on my porch. Reminds me of the year when one of my husband's coworkers, a regular client of mine, stuck all his tax return info under my husband's tool box at work. I never heard a peep and on April 10th I called him to see if I was preparing his return. He never told my husband that papers were there or that he expected my husband to bring them home to me. Yeah, that guy was a bit impaired too for a different reason; he'd had an auto accident with head injuries and had some permanent damage.

^ that, exactly! I also use it after being away for an extended period where I want to *start over* with the forum.

I might make his day whenever it is that I see him again. He only comes by when he needs bike repair, usually a flat tire from riding through broken glass. Last time he was here, he showed up at the front door and told me "yes, I have a flat tire." His tires weren't flat. One pedal had cracked and fallen off the bike and someone had stolen his saddle. We have some junker bikes that we were able to take spare parts from and get him back on the road, but this is part of why I think he's slightly impaired.

Yesterday I posted about a new feature I found on this forum. Today I'm posting something I found on my front porch. We hardly ever use the front door of the house, but sometimes UPS will put a package there if it's raining. I'm expecting a small package so I decided to check the front porch. No package, but I did notice a folded up piece of paper in the corner of the front porch along with some cobwebs. I would never have seen this paper by looking out the little sidelight windows next to the door. It was a W-2 belonging to a young man that lives somewhere nearby! I suspect that this young man may be slightly learning impaired. He graduated from high school several years ago and is probably 21 or 22 years old now. He shows up occassionally to have my husband fix flat tires on his bicycle and do some minor repairs to it. I don't even know exactly where he lives, he lives with his grandparents, and the W-2 shows a P.O. box as the address. He came by last year in mid-summer with his 2011 W-2 for me to look at because someone told him that he should. He had no federal or state taxes withheld, the earnings were under the threshold for filing, earnings too high for someone to claim him as a dependent, and he was too young for the EIC, so he went off on his merry way. For 2012 he has $10K in earnings and will receive almost all of his federal and Delaware withholding back when he files a tax return. I wonder how long the W-2 has been on my porch! Why me?

Out on the main page where the individual forums are listed, at the left side next to each forum there is a dialog balloon with quotes inside. Clicking on that balloon marks that entire forum as "read" without ever having to open it. I found this by accident. Am I the only one that didn't know that?

What's involved with that hearing that the taxpayer is requesting? From Catherine's description, it seems like it would be best to have someone accompany the client, at least those clients that aren't financial wizards. Heck, we all probably have at least one client where it's difficult just making them understand what documents we need to properly prepare the return. I wouldn't want to see *that* client go unattended to one of those hearings. Now, as for Catherine's statement about ATX not auto-populating certain parts of the HC form, is that how it is with all software or just with ATX? I'm not being a wisea$$ here or trying to bash ATX, I'm asking because after switching to other software I found that certain very simple straightforward inputs on my state's resident returns (related to Delaware's pension exclusion for those over 60) that weren't being done automatically by ATX are being handled properly by my new software without any input or intervention by me. Same with the credit for taxes paid to other states, which used to be a PITA in ATX, are automatic in the software I'm now using.

Funny, I was looking for my abacus just last week.

I'd call and make sure that you get the kind of usage you want. I saw something about "trade tokens" on their site, so I'm not clear if a token can be used for any of the services, or if there are specific kinds of tokens depending on what you want to do.

Yes, GruntWorx has minimum purchase of $50 which is 10 tokens at $5 each. It gets cheaper the more you purchase. It also works with software other than Drake. 3 levels of service: Organize - organizes and standardizes the electronic file of scanned documents. One token Trades - scanned broker stmts are consolidated into an Excel spreadsheet for the user to import into the tax software. One token per 50 transactions Populate - extracts data from scanned documents and provides electronic format for populating all data into the tax software. Sorry, I didn't jot down the # of tokens required.