Jack from Ohio

We will be ABOVE recommended specs even if we change programs. In our situation, hardware power and speed is cost effective.

Student was from China. She provided us copies of her visa with J-1 designation. China has a tax treaty so she is exempt from Income, SS & Medicare taxes. She is also exempt from State of Ohio as well because she has no Fed AGI. She can have two years of exemptions, then she is taxed like all other non-resident aliens. 1040NR-EZ is the trick.

7 now. Just sent you contact info.

Prosystem fx quoted me a price to do 1,000 returns at $12K after a 30% discount. You do the math.

No statute of limitation if you owe.

ATX 2003 and prior will not install on a WIN 7 machine. Therefore, if you ever need to use any of the older programs to access files or do returns, you must keep an XP machine available.

Does anyone have any experience with J-1 exemption? I find that J-1 are exempt from SS & Medicare withholdings for 2 years. New Client, $13K income. No taxes, SS or Medicare withholdings on her W-2. She absolutely insistst that she is not subject to any income tax Federal, State or local. I cannot verify her exemption from any income tax at all. Any help is appreciated. She is living with a very good long time client of ours, and this is the first J-1 we have encountered.

Head in the sand. Destined to change careers in the next 5 years or less.

I despise financial people that tell the client... "We took THE taxes out of the withdrawal." I tell all my clients that if they are thinking of making a money transaction of over $1K, to call me and talk about possible tax consequences. Only 5% that need to call me ever do. For the other 95%... "If you had followed my directions and called me, this surprise would not have happened. Consider my words in the future."

If there was nothing wrong or "sinister" in their actions, why the apology?

The lack of the states enforcing "use tax" laws is the source of the "uneven playing field." The laws have been on the books for decades. Of course our society has totally accepted the idea of not paying tax of any kind (whether owed or not) if you can get away with it. I stand in favor of the law. However, it has a snowball's chance in hell of passing the House.

Three standalones will work fine until a return on one machine is needed to be viewed on the other. Another hitch is e-file. If you e-file from three different non-networked machines, you must be diligent about DCN numbers and acks will be a nightmare. Their indications of not supporting a network are disappointing, but not unexpected. Those actions fit with the "business stupid" things CCH has done for the past 3 years. Saddling my horse. I have consult times with three other software providers. CCH continues to lose respect (how do you get below zero?) here at the firm and in my private business as well.

What happens when they graduate, and move away? I have an ultra-intelligent software engineer for a son. He is at least 20 IQ points smarter than his Dad. I am proud to tell that. (I also exploit it at every opportunity) He was part of the group that saved the firm I work for in late Feb. Big problem is that he moved away from home a few years ago. Almost 50 miles away. Good thing the internet and cell phones work!!

I understand that, as part of the bill, each state that wants to be included must provide a single contact point for the businesses to report the sales tax to. Also, companies doing less than $1 Million are exempt from the rule. Thirdly: Use tax laws have been on the books for a majority of the states since 1937. Paying sales (use) tax on items purchased in another state has been the law for 35 years. This is just a way to enforce the laws already in place. I agree with the bill requiring collection of the sales tax. I also agree with the mandate to have a single contact point in each state, or the state is not part of the program.

Larger than normal amend fees for that client. I am not afraid to charge clients like that a high amount for amending. Motivates them to be thorough (how could they forget taking the money out) when they collect their information. I charge extra for babysitting grown clients.

He may owe it all back. There is a place on form 5405 specifically for this situation, and it calculates what he owes in the year he loses ownership. He will need to know all the info about the repossession and the amount of mortgage forgiven.

Using all WIN 7 machines, we had as many as 6 people using the program simultaneously with the only issue being speed. The program creates a "ghost" database on each workstation. Keeping these all talking correctly to the main database was the source of all the program crashes until 12.15. The problem still is not totally fixed. I want the ability to watch the program progress through the summer and see the 2013 program in a full working environment before I will even remotely consider staying with them. Transparency or I ride!!

It has saved my butt many times. I have a bit of a tendency to transpose numbers, and when I slip up and don't pay complete attention, it raises its ugly head and strikes!! Forward and backward is my failsafe.

Can't live without my tape either. I get interrupted too many times not to have the tape, and like Joan said, makes a good marker with all the numbers for future reference. I, typically, run long strings of numbers twice. The second time in reverse order to be sure my fat fingers did it right!!

Charging fees that are too low by the standards listed is another cause of not enough margin to keep up with technology changes.

Does anyone have ATXMichelle's e-mail address or any direct e-mail addresses to management at ATX/CCH?

Dear ATXMichelle, Why would the developers create a program that distributes different versions of the same database on several different computers on the network. Why was a database not a database chose that would prevent users from accessing the same "user folder" but allow multiple users access to the database that is located in only ONE place? The actions of CCH by hiring and using less than adequate programmers and programmer supervisors has just cause 2 more long time (10 years) user to jump ship. By my having access to quality software programmers that help me regularly, I have discovered the truths about the "makeover" of ATX, and have decided that my/our businesses cannot take the risk for next tax season of the same "caused by lack of experience and knowledge of programmers) disaster we had in 2012. Were it not for my computer experience and the experience of several other very competent tech people I know, our firm would have crashed and burned for the 2012 season. As it turned out, we have been severely harmed and the damage is not over yet, but we did survive. It is our belief that YOUR company will experience the same kind of disaster in the coming 12 months. If you or anyone above you cares, this is our position, and we will not be coming back for 2013. I expect the usual "non-reply of any substance" as we have received about all our complaints this past season. However, you will not need to reply to us for the 2013 tax season, so this had become a non-issue from now on.

Your assessment is correct. At my work area, I have two computers. One is XP the other WIN 7 PRO with SSD. If I open ATX on the XP machine, no one else can access the database from the workstations after they logon. At first, I thought it was ATX dislike for XP. Now I know it is the RAVEN DB inability to work simultaneously with different OS. Likewise, if a WIN 7 machine opens the program first, none of the XP machines can access ATX.

At this point, the license allows 3 different users concurrently. If you need more, more license need to be purchased. We buy unlimited license for 50% of the initial program price.

Look at the system requirement ATX listed for 2013. Also, all my conversations with tech people and sales people have indicated that they were "fixing what is wrong with the new program" and nothing was mentioned about reworking. To change the core DB would take much more than a year to accomplish. If you read the installation directions listed in the 2013 requirements, you will see a very major change in installation process. The process indicates that the program will use the same DB but each workstation will be made to imitate a standalone. Pretty shabby way to polish a turd.