TaxCPANY

Now that paper checks have begun to go the way of landline phones, it's time to research the various offerors of electronic-payment schemes -- and some of my clients are keen for it. I received ATX/CCH's promo for "iTransact," two days ago, and will look into it -- but, of course, I greatly would appreciate hearing from anyone here of their experience, already.

I have used JPMorganChase Bank's electronic payment system, that took more trouble to set up than I would prefer to foist upon clients. Also, I shall *not* enrol in PayPal, for several reasons -- not the least of which are the many problems I've dealt with on behalf of several clients who rely upon it for much of their revenue.

Great thanks in advance, TaxCPANY

I also received the mailer, last week, and mean to check it out.

I always liked Kleinrock (and, before that, Tax Analysts), and, while I got used to Intelliconnect, I do wish it had a 'friendlier' UI and, especially, commentary/editorial about state & local taxes.

Thanks a lot for backgrounding Parker for me; I had no idea who its people were, before your post.

VTY, TaxCPANY

For some of us old Kleinrock hands, it appears that Kleinrock has returned under a new company called "Parker Tax Publishing." The new company is started by the original owner of Kleinrock before it was sold to CCH a few years ago. A friend of mine said he received a mailer for Parker to check out a new online research program. He claims its different than the IntelliConnect service. Unsure if its a better program or not,but Kleinrock was always good to me in the past. I couldn't handled the IntelliConnect service and switched to RIA a couple years ago. However, if this Parker program is any good and cheaper than what I'm paying RIA, I may check it out. It looks like someone is finally looking out for the little guy again. Has anyone else heard about Parker or received any mailers? I would be interested in any feedback.

MUCH obliged, kc! This is one paper return I'll be glad to prepare, now knowing how comfortable tomorrow's extension will be. Very truly yours, Kurt

Yes, if she qualifies for the long-time resident rule, she is good to go.

Divorcee quit-claims former joint home, June, 2009, buys own home June 2010. Could she qualify for first-time home buyer credit as a "long-term resident" (as she was in the former home 5-out-of-8 years)?

The charred meat my brain's become is sputtering over this. Anyone dealt with this, before, or still sharp?

GREAT thanks in advance, TaxCPANY

Why stick with Dell (or any particular brand), Deb -- really?

I faced the same question, last December, when my 'second major' desktop suddenly died. As I still had enough time to shop, thoroughly, I ended up with a *blazingly*-fast HP (Hewlett-Packard) that offered *much* more (including 3-year, on-site/same-day support) for much *less* cost than Dell would offer -- despite my being in Dell's "preferred customer" programme since 2005. I got a 'numbers-only,' dual-core desktop with max Ram and installed video capable of supporting dual-monitors, etc., for under a grand -- including that maintenance package AND Office 2007 AND Quickbooks 2011. Also, it's 64-bit; and it's *never* frozen or crashed, unlike my XP Pro SP3 'primary' desktop (a Dell 3000, by the way).

Half a decade ago, I would've spit on HP; but, they've since reclaimed prowess & reliability -- also according to 'Consumer Reports.'

VERY truly yours, TaxCPANY

I'm in the market for a new computer. I definitely want to stick with Dell. But I'm not sure which make or model, or configuration. Any suggestions? I've heard there are some issues with the 64 bit operating system. I don't do any gaming or watching of videos, I will be using this computer strictly for business. I run mainly ATX software and Quickbooks.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Deb!

Everything I've learned about online security AND best browsing compels me to use either FireFox or Chrome, the past year; but ATX's portal (to Intelliconnect, too, for instance) won't accept anything but Windows' Internet Explorer.

I haven't even installed IE on the laptop I use, every night -- once I'm quit of crunching returns.

Just a rant; but, technologically, ATX tasks me with its blindered reliance on only one kind of browswer. If it still weren't so cheap, I'd so be outta it. Would I really have to pay 3-8x more to have *comprehensive,* tax-preparation software that 'gets with the program?'

Dreaming on, TaxCPANY

Despite the aggravation -- and, hey, aren't we all feeling pretty fried, now -- I *always* nice-it-up with: "Taxpayer incurred a net operating loss in XXXX, that was not exhausted in carrying back to prior years [cite specific year(s)] (or did not elect to carryback, and, then, "persuant to IRC (& now I tank the cite)"), resulting in the current, carryforward amount of $ x."

*ALWAYS* has worked for me, without inciting subsequent notice/audit.

My best mentors taught me to always supply 'more' than enough data for any examiner to fill the folder he/she would have to show his/her superior, should he/she get grief for not collecting what 'the computer' wanted. I.e., examiners have to 'answer' for the outs we practitioners want for our clients; fill their folios with enough to swamp their bosses.

VTY, TaxCPANY

New one on me. Client has an NOL carryforward from a prior year that is used up this year. When I create the e-file, I get a red error stating an NOL explanation statement must be completed when and NOL carryforward is present? So when I click on the red error,it takes me to the statement.

What the HECK am I supposed to explain? They have a carryforward from a prior year and are using it in this year to offset income.

I am thinking of putting "Take a look at line 21."

Is this something new? I cannot ever remember seeing this before? Anyone have some verbage that the IRS is expecting to see on that explanation statement.

Thanks

Tom

Lodi, CA

I reached Jack's point after reading a lot of posts in the TaxTalk group (Yahoo Groups) about Circular 230's revisions, a few years ago; and I agree with michaelmars that ATX's standard engagement letter needs only some tweaking. Good templates are widely available online, from insurers such as Camico and that accountants' insurer formerly a cooperative whose name I can't recall, tonight. TaxTalk's participants also provided valuable advice regarding the Service's recent FBAR initiative -- condensed into just a paragraph or two worth incorporating into engagement letters.

VTY, TaxCPANY

The closest one to us 'up here' in the Northeast is Washington, DC -- and fuhggedabouda Midwesterners (as I once was).

WTF? Every NYC & Chicago forum I've attended has been *fully* booked; so I can't believe this has anything to do with 'serving "stakeholders."'

As soon as I re-learn which of my Senators and Representative is on a tax-centric committee, I'll be calling him and/or her.

I hope I'm not the only one incensed by this . . . .

(Oh, and, while emblazoning the TF homepage with a "Going Green" tag -- i.e., no more printed seminar handbooks provided, but BYO pdf's (the site literally says "bring lots of paper") -- let's all task the air-conditioning in Atlanta, Orlando, Dallas, San Jose & Las Vegas in *Summer!*)

VTY, TaxCPANY, Huntington, NY

1040 Planner un-updated since November; NYC-3L AND CT-400 AND 1041 e-filing still missing; and 1040-ES provided (but WITHOUT a non-draft 1040 Planner as an alternative) only this week, finally. *Plus, the AR clergy bug KC reported, today.*

How can I tell my clients I'm holding their returns or, at best, delivering only the 2010 part, without sounding like a cheapskate idiot for having relied on CCH/ATX to update their forms, TWO months after Congress' historically-late (12/17/10), last tinkering with the IRC?!

Maybe I didn't take the pre-emptive elimination of Asset History to heart, back when. Now, I'm readier than ever to leave ATX and to flame them in every forum I can reach.

WTF?! TaxCPANY

Thanks MUCH, KC! I've got a cantor who reports to AR -- and, as he's peripatetic, there's always so much going on that this might've caught me at the 11th hour.

VTY, TaxCPANY

When processing a Minister's return, the program is not pulling the Clergy W-2 to line 8, nor is it picking up Excess Housing Allowance. The program SHOULD pull the amount from the Line 7 WORKSHEET TOTAL to line 8. In the past, AR had a separate line for Ministers, and the program worked fine. Now, the worksheet for Federal Line 7 works right, but the info does not feed to the AR1000F. The workaround is to go to the Fed Line 7 worksheet and link the total to the AR line 8, and add the AR4, which is where the nontaxable portion of the housing allowance now shows up. The AR4 is not being added automatically, as it should when there is Housing Allowance on the Clergy Worksheet. If you add the AR 4 the amount does automatically show up.

ATX's 1040 Planner has not been updated since *November*! This aggrieves me, because I typically include it with the returns I send to my clients -- i.e., I think it's almost as important to forewarn clients as it is to report their pasts. (And, yes; I jettisoned BNA Tax Planner once its price was trebled . . . . It always was a hassle to perfect, and an ugly thing to show to a paying client.)

It's bad enough that we still don't have Form 1040-ES approved -- and had to wait til 'today' to get 8879 workable.

If my complaint resonates with you, please get on the horn to ATX.

VTY, TaxCPANY

On the 2009 Form 1120S you can check box G that you're also applying for S corp status, attach Form 2553 "if not already filed," and, in the section of the 2553 below the officer's signature, describe a "reasonable cause" for the omission. In the case of one of my clients, I wrote: "Taxpayer's sole shareholder incorporated the entity with full intention to operate as an S coporation from date of inception, but only the state incorporation papers and federal Form SS-4 were filed at that date. Taxpayer moreover incurred no expense nor income during the year of incorporation, but only during the calendar year 2009, for which it is filing Form 1120S. The taxpayer's sole shareholder is reporting on his personal tax return all reportable items of the S corporation." Also, the entry in Box B matches that in Box E -- i.e., the election was requested to take effect upon date of incorporation.

So far, no notices have been received from either the feds or the state.

IMHO, the Service has been extremely lenient for about three years in allowing late elections of S corporation status without penalty, AS LONG AS some 'apology' is filed along with the late application.

VTY, TaxCPANY

Anyone?

One-fourth of the time, guys stoop less (and drip less) when toilet paper's over the top (as all my "hospitality" clients know). Three-fourths of the time it doesn't matter, BUT, there're no spills then, anyway. As for dislodging a paper-towel roll, it can happen in either case, if you yank a sheet downward. Yanking it directly toward you is better, as all the pop-in dispensers I've seen are oriented vertically.

Accounting for it all . . . TaxCPANY

Family disagreement. Should the paper towel or toilet paper unroll from the front or the back. I think it is a gender thing, the guys say one way and the the girls the other way. Which way do you unroll your paper?

Thanks for your opinion.

I'm still living in the good ol' days, John, when, if the remittance were accurate within a few dollars, there wouldn't be a followup from the feds (albeit NYS & NYC always nickel & dime). Most of my late- and previously-non-filers are rather phobic about notices, too. Kurt

Why embarrass yourself? Consider thie - just estimate the P&I, tell the client it's an estimate, and then tell them to expect a bill about 30-45 days after they file which will make all the final adjustments. I do this and never have any complaints - they usually give me the bill to check over for accuracy, but they expect to pay more based on what I told them at the outset.

They're filing late, do they really care about a hundred dollars or so one way or the other? Not if you set the expectation correctly.

But it is good to know that ATX isn't getting it right, so thanks for the heads up.

Following is one of the explanations on the Line 21 (1040) Other Income statement, which can be printed to accompany a return: "Income from the rental of personal property but were not in the business of renting such property".

On the other hand, I report rentals of my video-business clients' equipment on Schedule E, as I learnt to do from more-experience hands; but I can't quickly offer a cite therefor. VTY, TaxCPANY

TP is a musician as a hobby, he sings and plays at bars on talent night and owns a derisable guitar. So someone back in 2009 paid him some money to loan him the guitar on/off for a couple of months. He is not in the business of renting equipment but the opportunity came up, can the amount he recieved be reported on line 21 as other income?

ATX confirmed that in BOTH its 2008 and 2009 Form 1040 software (including the Archive Disk, that I got, today), returns filed over 60 days late still default to the pre-12/31/2008 $100 minimum, not the $135 minimum since in effect. Please check any returns you know will be that late; I've embarrassed myself, twice, now.

VTY, TaxCPANY

Thanks, Carolyn,

I too had had acks languishing, and had forgotten completely about the synch function.

TaxCPANY

Try syncing - I noticed I hadn't received any acks for my files transmitted early last week. I just ran the sync function and it updated my end. To sync go to support-customer service utilities -and choose synchronize with EFC.

Carolyn

What [new] fee, Margaret? My initial readings were that we CPAs who also already have PTINs won't have that to pay. I've done no in-depth homework -- and am waiting til I attend the Chicago IRS Forum in July to learn it all -- but, if I'd got it wrong, I'd like to bring that up, come July (to both the IRS and my state Society).

VTY, TaxCPANY

I did attend and also found it informative. As a CPA, many of the things don't affect me, I think. I am a bit annoyed about having to 're-up' my PTIN which I received within months of their first appearance. I am also not pleased to have to pay a fee. But if it helps to weed out unscrupulous preparers to any extent, I guess it will end up being a better way.

Hi, Montana,

The "Tax Warehouse" provides my 'version' of your #4 request, automatically for forms, or, with its 10 customizable fields, for worksheets.

And a big thanks to kcjenkins for pointing that out, sometime ago!

VTY, TaxCPANY

P.S. I'm right there with ya about the hybrid Organizer and retaining print preferences.

OK, so that turned into three, not two suggestions. Also:

4. It would be helpful if we could search our client files for all the returns that contain a particular form or schedule.

5. The update forms report drives me nuts, and I end up ignoring it. We need to be able to leave the completed tax returns out of it.

6. There should be a way to print the Form 8879 WITH the DCN on it before we create the e-file, so that the copy the client signs has the DCN on it. I refuse to create the e-file until I have the Form 8879 signed in case there are any changes to the return, and so that I don't somehow accidently send the e-file before I get the authorization.

Hi, Taxizen,

I strongly recommend Billing Tracker Pro, which I've been using for over five years - have renewed/upgraded it twice. Check it out -- 30-day free trial -- at www.billingtracker.com

A single screen shows you *all* clients with outstanding balances, columned into "current," over 30 days, over 60 days, etc.

Another single screen lets you re-issue invoices, automatically updated to show how many days past-due -- and every other variation I've wanted to re-issue.

Overall, Billng Tracker is enormously flexible, in terms of *unlimited* number of clients AND projects AND billing-rates, logging retainers and partial payments and billing by time or project -- or other modes I have not needed, myself. It would let me customize my invoices totally, but its six default templates have been variety enough.

It also lets you time two jobs at once -- e.g., when a client calls while you're working on something else, you simply can open a new 'clock' for that call. The first is paused while you log the second.

Technically, it's lean - e.g., after all this time, its data file is only slightly over 1MB. It's also portable - i.e., I swap its datafile between a desktop and a laptop, every day.

The problem with QuickBooks Timer is that you need to be using QB for your practice -- as would be overkill for my sole proprietorship. The problem with Time & Chaos is that, when I checked it out, it cost more -- and, now, Maribeth still doesn't use its billing module. Every other billing software I looked at, a couple of years ago, did not offer the full resources of Billing Tracker at anywhere near a comparable price -- but I only can doubt that that's still the case, because I've had *no* reason look beyond BT all this time.

VTY, TaxCPANY

How are you, ATX users?

I wonder what kind of billing software you are using. I am looking for a simple and good billing software which tracks account receivable.

Would anyone recommend me?

Thanks in advance.

1) Restoring "Asset History" to the Asset Entry worksheet would redress CCH/ATX's biggest gaffe, this past Tax Season -- you must have seen the chorus of complaints posted here and in many forums, once that news broke. Almost none of us "small practitioners" need a full-blown "fixed asset manager," but almost all of us have clients buying, selling, abandoning fixed assets, each year -- and requiring us to weigh whether bonus depreciation, Sec. 179, etc. is best -- that we're still sore that CCH pulled the plug, especially with no prior warning.

2) As a fellow New Yorker, I hope you would noodge CCH to get ATX -- not just ProSystems fx -- listed as an "approved provider" of entity e-files to New York City. CCH already has had its foot in NYC's door for two years, so adding ATX to the mix shouldn't be a big deal -- and I know a fair number of other NY-based practitioners who'd be keen to consider ATX if that enhancement were available.

Thanks much for stepping-up, Ken. I will try to offer more than wish-list items, in future.

VTY, TaxCPANY

There exists talk in this community from time to time about whether CCH is committed to the ATX product. I have what I find to be exciting news in regards to this. I would like for you all to know that ATX has formed an "ATX Customer Advisory Board", and I have been asked to participate. I do not know if there are others participating from this community or not.

I have been a long time user of ATX. I know with my software engineering background (from my life in corporate America) and tax preparation experience that I can be a good contributor to this effort. I am excited to have a voice into the program and feel like many of the ideas I have had over the years will finally be heard! My tax preparation experience is in personal returns and predominantly NY state returns. I do not take this commitment lightly and plan to be an active participant. Perhaps there are other long term users like me that have ideas and have been frustrated like me that these ideas were falling on deaf ears. I value the collective wisdom and experience of this community. I would be glad to receive ideas, talk to people, etc. to try to get other people's ideas (especially in areas where I am not well-versed, like business returns, states other than NY, etc.) and bring them forward to the board. Please contact me if interested....

The point is (at least to me) that CCH appears to be demonstrating a commitment to ATX. I think this is great news, and I am personally reassured by this. Our kickoff meeting is in early June. There I will be able to learn the makeup and backgrounds of the other participants and CCH's goals for the group. Please understand that I have signed and am bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) when it comes to planned software enhancements and schedules.

THANK you, SF Bob. I confess that I needed this reminder; it's been two whole years since I last paid proper homage to Eric's invaluable endeavor.

Contritely, TaxCPANY

This is an unsolicited post. Think about all the hard work that Eric does in our behalf by maintaining this fourm.He does not have the CCH bank roll behind him.I am sure tossing a bone his way would be appreciated. I just mailed my bone, why not join me. Click on donations on the upper task bar on the home page.ERIC PLEASE DO NOT DELETE THIS MESSAGE FOR A FEW DAYS.Have a great day everyone. Regards SF BOB

Once Pdf Factory had become one of Windows XP's suite of printers, I've upgraded it only once -- some year or so ago? -- and, then, for free -- and not since have needed to tweak it, in order to print good-quality PDFs for free. On my Windows7 laptop, however, I've had to opt for "BullZip PDF Printer," in order to retain the capability of printing PDF's without inveighing Adobe's bloatware.

I also don't bother with encrypting PDF's because my clients & I exchange those *only* via YouSendIt.com -- never via email -- and that's another (incredibly) free resource (I mean, until one realizes how valuable it is and thus volunteers to pay for it, as, ethically, one ought to).

Hey, chadw,

I must respectfully disagree with Pacun: your client indeed has the option of filing a "dual-status" return.

If you already know this, and simply are asking the technical question of how to get "dual status" printed, I can't help you, right now.

Under Reg. Sec. 301.7701(-4((2), a departing "alien" may establish an 'early' "residency termination date," so as to avoid whole-year, US-resident taxation. A formal statement of your client's termination of residency must be attached to the 2009 return. Now, this assumes that your client did not have a "green card," because, if he/she did, he/she also must have taken steps to formally *relinquish* the green card, in time to cut his/her US-residency period short.

Hope this helps, VTY, TaxCPANY