jklcpa

Joan, I'm so very sorry for your loss. With time I hope you'll think only of the happier times with Fob that will help to heal your heart. He will always be with you in spirit.

IRS was back up and running by 11pm last night and was sending acks again this morning.

I'll keep you in my prayers for an easy and uneventful recovery. I'm glad to hear they got all the cancer.

If the W-2 shows PA wages, use that figure. It will differ from the federal wages because PA doesn't allow deferrals for 401K and similar plans. PA doesn't tax some items like cost of group term life over $50K either, so in many cases the PA wages will be different. PA doesn't allow losses that show up on page one of the return but don't add in to the total. PA does have a flat tax so if all that the taxpayer has is wages, the return should come out to zero balance due and zero refund. ATX drop down box for a nonresident is "Not a resident on 12/31" and the code that populates is 99999. Depending on the job, your client might have unreimbursed business expenses that would be reported on schedule UE that is linked to the line right below wages on pg 1 of the PA40. If your client has this form, be sure to fill out the employer information completely so the return isn't rejected for missing info.

Tom, could you duplicate the return and open the dup to prepare the estimates?

Oh, and to add to the story about the SIL. She didn't give me the data for one of her son's returns because he's living in NC now and did his own return on Turbo Tax "because it is so easy and all of his friends do theirs that way too". That's fine with me because I suspect he might have qualified for EIC this year, worked in a restaurant starting in April last year. I didn't want to do the return anyway. So I just had to tell her some of the stories of preparers being fined the $500 per return for lack of documentation in due diligence because she's always one to give me a hard time about providing information. She probably asks her doctor or lawyer for free advice at social gatherings too. Oy! Then I found a 1099 for interest income in my nephew's name mixed in with their other data. I called SIL and told her that he could look forward to receiving a notice and possibly have an amount owed back to Uncle Sam. I'm glad she told me how easy his return was.

Lynn, are you suggesting that the state returns aren't showing up in the efile manager listing because they are "held". That would be new for this year. They should still be listed and indicate that they are "held", not simply disappear. Cathy said that she looked at the efile manager and the state return wasn't listed at all.

Jack, go back to what JohnH asked. None of the returns you are doing are basic enough to prepare without conversion? You do 2900 returns and said somewhere else that you've already filed about 800 of those. If you had a mere 10 minutes of extra time caused by ATX, that's over 130 working hours so far. Listening to the others here, it's not just 10 minutes of wasted time either. It's extra time for rollovers, opening, crashing, rebooting, and rechecking returns that have lost data or boxes that aren't staying checked when the returns are reopened. That doesn't even address the extra time printing or those two dozen or more returns that are simply lost that need to be reworked. The point John and I were making was that *if* the firm is going through a conversion that might take a week or more, why not use that time to work on some of the returns that don't have a lot of information to retype and let that be the opportunity to learn the new program while being productive. For those returns that have lots of fixed assets, leave those to go through the conversion process. So to answer your statement - yes, I could type a lot of information into the system in the time that is being wasted trying to make these returns work in ATX.

I took a break and went to see my mother for half an hour. I was really there to pay her PA sales tax and file away some of her business papers. My SIL saw my car and decided to drop off her tax data...that might be missing some stuff. Oh well, at least she didn't barge in during Sunday dinner at mom's like she's done most other years.

It is highly unlikely that anyone from ATX will be calling. This is an unofficial forum that isn't connected with ATX at all. You should post your problem over on the official forum that is accessed through "MyATX" on the official site, the same place you get the updates from. You might also consider emailing support through the official site with your problems.

When switching software, unless you have a lot of fixed assets or carryforwards, there is no reason a preparer needs a conversion. When you work on a new client, you don't have any conversion or rollover from the prior year. I bet you and the other preparers have spent more time worrying over ATX and making it work than you would have if you prepared those returns in other software from scratch.

RDennis, I just finished a return last night for a retired couple with IRA basis on 8606 and distributions from IRAs. I entered the individual 1099-Rs from the IRAs as usual. That allows the program to print a nice detailed summary because my client had 7 1099s and each had withholding too. On the 1099R input screen, for the IRAs - check the box that says "Exclude from income, reported on 8606". That box is in the lower left corner of the 1099R screen. On the 8606 screen, enter the carryforward basis from last year on line 2, total value of the IRAs on line 6, and the total of the IRA distributions on line 7. It doesn't double up on the distributions reported on the return. It worked perfectly on my client's return.

Drake gives the 2011 for free to try out and see if you like it. I think you could prepare paper returns with it. You wouldn't be able to efile with it until you pay for their product. The PPR is $285 and includes 15 returns, then $19 for the next 70 returns. After a total of 85 returns, it can be converted to unlimited and you have to call to do this. It is unlocked after the season, so if many of the returns you prepare are going on extension or are fiscal year taxpayers that will be filed later in the year, it might be less expensive to use PPR. If you prepare a lot of returns, it is cheaper to buy the unlimited for $1495 because if you exceed 85 returns before the end of April you would pay over $1600 for the 85 returns on PPR ( $285 + 70 x $19). I went with the PPR to minimize the cash outlay while I tried it out with the hopes that ATX would get better, but I simply don't trust ATX with some of the problems others are having.

Thanks for the tip on the stock transactions. That will be very helpful when some of my larger returns start coming in. I'll give that some practice on a return that only have a few as you say. I haven't needed the forms based entry. The look of the screens don't bother me. All of the information is there, a lot of it in a similar format or order of entry to that of the real forms (like the w-2, divs and interest screens). Unless a 1099-div has t/e income or foreign withholding, the grid entry is actually faster to input a 1099 that has only ordinary, qualfied and cap gain divs than going to the more detailed screen. I've found lots of time savers in the program. The speed of creating and sending efiles is amazing.

Enter the FEIN on the Sch C and enter the 1099s as usual. There is nowhere on the 1099-misc input to even indicate an FEIN, but linking it to the proper schedule C and indicate whether it is for the taxpayer or spouse should be all you need to do. The Sch C shows both the the SSN and the FEIN so the IRS *should* be able to match it up. If you get a notice, you will be able to show that all of the 1099's were reported on the Sch C and explain why.

Yes, I know. If you stick around you will find out that this is a great group of people, and I don't think you'll find a more helpful tax forum anywhere on the internet. This forum was started in 2007 after CCH shut the official one down in 2007 in mid-season. We all found our way here and some of the users here don't even purchase ATX software any more but continue on because of the excellent advice, the friendship and the overall tone of the forum.

Your rep was certainly out of line. Nowhere in the company's refund policy does it say anything about the customer's request having to be reasonable or qualifies the terms in the way you have described. It allows a dissatisfied customer to request the refund before 2/28 and states that an amount of $20 per return processed, after the first one, will be deducted from the purchase price to be refunded. FWIW, I tried calling my sales rep for clarification on something, but that extension number is no longer valid. I will be submitting my refund request through the website and following it up with a fax and keeping a copy of the transmission log. I paid early back in May 2012 and spoke with my credit card company to ask whether or not they'd back me up. I explained it to them that the software doesn't even ship out until the end of the year and that the company is supposed to honor refund requests received by 2/28/13. If I had to get the credit card company involved, it would have to be higher up at least to the supervisor level because of this timing and the fact that the refund would be a partial one with deducting the $20 per return. I'm curious what ATX will refund to me. I efiled one 1040 through the program, but I purchase the TTO bundle and I have also efiled a few 1099s through the payroll part of the program (that is working very well) and a few W-2s that don't go through their system, but create the files that I upload to SSA and my state division of revenue. So it will be interesting to see how they account for the part of the payroll program that I've used.

to Angry Customer, you have spewed your spam on multiple threads that is not helpful and in most cases is off topic. Lots of us are angry or frustrated, but spamming your message isn't helping. It is especially not helpful to have added it to the pinned thread at the top of this subforum that is meant only for people to post solutions and workarounds that users have had some success with for specific problems.

Angry, you aren't the only one that is upset or stressed over the workings of this year's program. We are all struggling with it, and some of us here have purchased other software that is working and plan to ask for a refund before the end of the month. Spamming this unofficial privately owned site isn't helping. What might be helpful is if you stay on topic within the threads.

"incorporated more user input" Meaning that support is nonexistent and we must now be programmers to solve the myriad of this year's software problems

How's your search for new software coming along?

No fingerprints for me being a CPA, but part of the application to sit for the CPA exam included submitting my fingerprints with the application. I wonder if current candidates still have to do that? About the article posted by the OP. The IRS e-services asks for prior year AGI and birthdate when submitting a POA. It seems to me that implementing a similar safety check would eliminate some of the fraud where names and social security numbers have been compromised.

No clients bring me anything before the beginning of February, so I don't know about efile capability at that date. The states I file are DE, NJ, PA and MD. I can tell you that as of 2/9 I couldn't efile a NJ return because ATX didn't have NJ payment voucher approved for paper filing. I was told it was a holdup with the state, but it might have been the state's specific problem with something wrong specifically with ATX because Drake's form was ready to go. In past years I've been held up on some Delaware returns which I've suspected that it is because we are small state and probably have a limited number of ATX users, that ATX didn't give my state as high a priority as the large states.

One of the worksheets for the 8889 has months where the check boxes are used to indicate the months of family coverage and the months of single-only coverage. The program will compute the appropriate reduced limitation on total contributions allowed based on what you enter. I have one this these for 2012 as well

It sounds like the receipt of funds will still be considered a transfer because of the settlement incident to their divorce. There are additional rules that will allow these transfers that are made later than one year to be considered as such. There is a 6 year rule that you should read up on. Check in IRS Pub 504 under Property Settlements for a start. I don't think the legal fees are deductible. From that same pub: Nondeductible expenses. You cannot deduct the costs of personal advice, counseling, or legal action in a divorce. These costs are not deductible, even if they are paid, in part, to arrive at a financial settlement or to protect income-producing property.