TaxCPANY

My bad: I indeed did get "Notifications" but had not arranged to have those emailed to me. Eric's creation still is perfect.

You're right, Rita & Yardley -- and THANKS. It's in the name of "customer service" that I've been wondering how to mitigate these taxpayers' sudden whim; but ultimately I'd rather have them know me for my technical skill than cuddlesomeness. P.S. Apology for this late response: I don't seem to have received any Notifications when my post was commented upon, only dropped in today with a different question!

Will direct debit of 2018 federal estimated tax payments be effected by e-filing 2017 Form 4868 or can only Form 1040/A/EZ e-filing make that happen? On the Estimated Payment Options page ATX notes -- in red -- only: "Estimates are included in the 1040/A/EZ e-file when Direct Debit is selected . . . ." Did ATX simply neglect to include 4868 e-filing or is that functionally excluded? Two ATX help staff so far have failed to understand the question -- I must be having a Bad English day.

Father just wrote that, after having claimed (college student) son as dependent on return filed last month, son now "will do his own . . . he likes to take responsibility." Hooray, ;-) . . . But, I have NO time to amend returns before 17th. Should son be advised to file extension, or would late-filing penalty be averted merely by reference to the amended return down the road, or what else?

Oh heck, yes; perfectly nice agent promised me several years of transcripts yesterday morning, 7:20am -- had got into Practitioner's Hotline by 7:01am (with, yes, only a 1-minute wait). Last thing, last night I finally whinged to my spouse how disappointed I was; did the agent mis-transcribe my fax number (how come they seem never to read it off the 2848 or 8821)? Whom should I report my missing faxes to, too? Interestingly, I was resorting to PPS because e-Services had barred me for allegedly entering incorrect logins thrice, the day before. Well, even had I mis-typed the login the first time, I certainly hadn't, the second time. When I called that 'third strike' false to an e-Services Helper an hour later, he told me that e-Services recalls our errors for *weeks* now. And, yes, I had mis-typed a login some time ago in the misty past. (Sic)

One spouse was being denied Lifetime Learning Credit for no reason I could discern. The next day they reported income that put their AGI above threshold, mooting the problem. But I've retained a copy of the previous state of the return, dreaming I'll get the time to debug it. Maybe related though not AOTC?

Rather than PDF attachments, I still mail hard copies of Forms 1099-B, stapled to Form 8453, to the standard address in Austin, TX. Only my biggest day trader's statements ever cost more than two Forever stamps (on a 9 x 12 manila envelope), and my postman simply takes them from my mailbox. On Form 8949 I enter "See Form 8453 attachment", one subtotaling all the short-term transactions and net gain/loss, one long-term. Absent wash sales and gnarly puts & calls, it's short, sweet and in compliance.

Jack, would it be convenient for you to merely name the font style? I'm trying to format a Form 1040X, Section 3 Explanation of Changes in a 2014 return -- when line-breaks were not a simple matter unlike other years. So I'm attempting a workaround by first creating a *.TXT file to paste into Section 3 -- and finding a match for ATX's fonts isn't happening instantaneously. Thanks in advance for any help -- you or anyone. KCW

I also get them all the time -- using 8821 sometimes, instead of 2848, when I anticipate no future negotiation. Where it formerly took as little as two business days for the faxed-in authorization to have an effect, it's usually a full week now. (Gawd how I miss the days when one could apply and get access on-line immediately!) When it takes longer and I have the time, I call Practitioner Priority Hotline; once an agent answers, he or she will accept your faxed-in form within minutes and fax or snail-mail you back the transcript(s).

Yet my TTO package increased $ 211.85 (not including sales tax, but TaxBook All States, which I do use). The diversity of my clients requires some kind of 'total' package, but the little I've read about ATX Max begins to suggest it could accommodate them all. Three concurrent user licenses would suffice. Could someone post a Max product description, please? 2017 ATX TTO renew copy.pdf

Even though I pull a few dozen transcripts (& IRMFs) a year -- 8821 for those clients who seem to always omit one or another 1099, 2848 for the late- and non-filers I get referred to -- I saw nothing majorly time-saving about Canopy. But I appreciate the two hours' free CPE they provided through CPAacademy.com last week; the seminar on OIC was enlightening, while the one on Penalty Abatement was more a refresher. Both pitched Canopy, of course. Not a bad idea but I couldn't see the value added.

If those Australians can be considered 'tax residents' of the US due to the "substantial presence" test of IRC Sec. 7701(b)(3), they indeed are the "U.S. residents" who would be required to file FinCEN Form 114. FBAR encompasses even certain non-resident aliens who are not required income-tax returns; so please scrutinize those clients' situation as thoroughly as your doubt is telling you to, Possi. A pertinent section of BNA puts it this way: "The instructions to the form [FinCEN Form 114] say that an alien is a "resident" for FBAR purposes if classified as a resident alien under §7701(b).10 The Preamble to the 2011 FBAR regulations does provide that "a legal permanent resident who elects under a tax treaty to be treated as a non-resident for tax purposes must still file the FBAR,"11 10 See http://sdtmut.fincen.treas.gov/news/FinCENFBARElectronicFilingRequirements.pdf, at page 49. It should be noted that the definition of the term "resident" in the statute requiring Form 114 to be filed by a resident appears to be much broader than the definition in §7701(b). See the discussion of this issue - which has been rendered moot by the current FBAR regulations - in Bissell, "The 2004 Act: Impact on Foreign Private Clients," 34 Tax Mgmt. Int'l J. 177 (3/11/05), at 185-187. http://bna-stage.bna.com/#_ftnref1111 See http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-02-24/pdf/2011-4048.pdf at pages 10238 and 10245 (31 CFR §1010.350(b)(2), which defines "resident of the United States" as "an individual who is a resident alien under 26 U.S.C. §7701(b) and the regulations thereunder …." (Emphasis added.)" Good hunting!

Just got an email to call and get TTO at NO sales tax through 5:30pm this Friday, June 24! (10% discount too.) That's worth $ 171.82!

Eset NOD32 antivirus and paid version of CCleaner. I also preview all email on my ISP's webmail interface; everything apparently non-spam (that wasn't caught at the ISP level) is downloaded to MS Outlook (simply by opening Outlook after deletions made in webmail) maintained on a laptop on which no irreplaceable files are kept -- my email "sandbox". (The only ransomware-accessible conduit runs through Dropbox, which automatically keeps a prior-to-change version of each file.) It sounds a lot more complex and time-consuming than it is. Like schirallicpa returns are prepped on standalone PCs. Like Abby, I foreswore Norton and McAfee years ago. Once I found Eset, I've used it for all PCs, Apples, and smartphones. Even my irrepressible daughter's iPhone hasn't been hacked.

THANK you, AB! Yours is the first/only mention I've seen of this survey, which I'm overjoyed to spout off with. I hope I did a service by answering the survey's request for "one new feature you'd like" with the following: "Virtually EVERY request in the "2015 Enhancements" section of the ATX Community Discussion Center should be included going forward or even retroactively."

Only when IT answers its pager.

You have my deepest sym- AND em-pathy, n'est ce pas (couldn't resist it). Despite getting Win10 on a new machine, it's cost me literally weeks of unbillable aggravation since October. At this moment, I cannot use my laser printer with ANY machine in my network, even the Win7's and Apples -- about the half-dozenth time a Win10 update has caused that particular problem, and, of course, it was last Sunday's update, so that I had to address envelopes for extensions and estimates by hand last Monday. I even dread fixing any Win10 problem because its lack of a native Help resource means wading through the online welter of conflicting users' advice and obtuse boilerplate from the few Microsoft-affiliated bloggers lurking in the Help chats. Nothing like this focused, monitored chat community. I advise everyone who asks to wait until just before the July 29 deadline to see whether Microsoft has consolidated its Help resources AND overcome the worst of the myriad of driver and software conflicts, before upgrading. At this point, I would not upgrade my Win7 machines, and, with four years before its support ends, still hope for a truly mature, reliable operating system to succeed it.

In the 11 years I have relied on Eset NOD32, absolutely NO virus or malware has infected either my Windows-based primary desktop or laptop. One desktop in my network inhaled a rootkit Trojan, once, when an assistant downloaded it from a French site. (At no extra cost, an Eset tech talked us through the process of extirpating the rootkit.) That's the ONLY time any platform in my network has been infected in any way. In the past three years nothing has infected my spouse's Apple-based platforms; she didn't use any third-party antiviral before that. Eset offers a more wholesale Security Suite, that I simply haven't felt the need for, given my experience with NOD32. I started using Eset because, at the time, it was the only antiviral that hadn't failed a VB100 test. Eset has stumbled in a couple of the quarterly tests since then, I've read, but it really has kept up its perfect record for me.

Here's the link to New York's pages: https://nystateofhealth.ny.gov/individual/searchAnonymousPlan/pagePlans TerryD's and jkl's links referenced 'only' 35 states' plans, when I checked those, yesterday -- and New York had not been among those.

http://tax.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/603/~/are-public-employee-414-(h)-contributions-taxable-by-new-york-state%3F provides a decent list of the types of 414(h) we're likely to encounter.

7th item under Quick Links (upper right corner) on Wolters Kluwer/MyATX Solution Center -- aka support.atxinc.com -- *before* you log in.

I'm going to the one in Denver, next week. Already have a roommate, but would be delighted to actually see someone from this forum. Any "fellow travelers"?

Green card working stateside a couple of years now; first time she's been employed by UN.

Just got my first UN employee as a client, and it's a new job for her, too; so we're both unfamiliar with just what constitutes "earnings." Per the UN PowerPoint from its tax unit, "taxable earnings = gross salaries + other emoluments . . .", and there are no less than 11 components to her pay. Her English is not sophisticated enough to understand my requests for documents I assume would explain to new employees what all those pieces are about. Anyone been here before, could shed light on which "emoluments" I should base this year's projection?

I recommend the "Excel Tips & Tricks" webinar offered by CPAcademy, too. During this past Season, they offered a webinar on encrypting PDF files that I just couldn't time right to attend. I now drop in on this site periodically, to see what's offered next. Not only are its *free* webinars usually jam-packed with information, CPE is provided, and, once in a while, the discounts offered to attendees to engage further with the presenter are a real benefit, IMO.