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micpa

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Everything posted by micpa

  1. You have a great tax planning opportunity here if the owners manage the resort. You could move the business to a separate entity, execute an agreement requiring the managers to reside at the location for the convenience of the business. Their unit may be depreciable and they may also be able to write off other expenses such as food. I would study up on this one to see what is available to them.
  2. micpa

    pc anyware

    I thought that program was discontinued. I have used Chrome Remote Desktop with good results.
  3. micpa

    Form 1139

    I was doing a carryback of a NOL, so I stopped at line 28 for each year. Check here under numbers 10 & 11, for a change in Form 8827: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/temporary-procedures-to-fax-certain-forms-1139-and-1045-due-to-covid-19 There may also be an update to these instructions.
  4. micpa

    Form 1139

    The 1139 that I did for 2019 using Drake, prints it on 2 1139 forms. First page, far right column 1st preceding tax year, middle column 2nd, 3rd year far left column. Second page also on Form 1139, middle column 4th year, far left column 5th year. Check instructions for attachments. It took a while, but they received their refunds plus interest.
  5. Employers are entitled to tax credits for providing paid leave to employees who take time off related to COVID-19 vaccinations. Just another thing to be aware of for your clients: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/employer-tax-credits-for-employee-paid-leave-due-to-covid-19
  6. "Helping" is clearly not taxable.........as long as you are a 501 (c) (3). I have to get back to "helping" a client, I mean friend by answering some questions.....voluntarily.
  7. Just did a conversion to "Intuit Online Payroll," everything is in the cloud. They have 3 levels Core, Premium and Elite which is what they use. Fee is monthly plus so much per employee per month, not charged per each payroll run and includes direct deposit. They don't use "Quickbooks" just the online payroll and with Elite, they will do the conversion for you, BUT review it carefully, our conversion could have been smoother although we converted mid year. Elite includes time tracking and reporting with Quickbooks Time (formerly TSheets.) Time can be entered from a smartphone app or tablets set up as "kiosks" and time is approved prior to running payroll. It has a lot of options and you can set schedules, shifts, breaks, locations, etc. I like that it is in the cloud, they make all Fed, State and Local deposits and all payroll tax form filings. Employees have a phone app called Workforce where they can access payroll history and receive notifications when they will have their pay deposited. Employees like it. Support is good for Intuit Online Payroll and poor for Quickbooks Time, unless you like using the Community.
  8. For more information, Google The Tax Book Windows 7 Should No Longer Be Used for Tax Preparation. Microsoft has announced that support for Windows 7 ends on January 14, 2020.
  9. Eric, That is perfect!! I contacted MS and told them to give me an option to click on to NEVER, EVER see this reminder again. I have Win 10 on one of my laptops, but I told them I will never install it on my main business computer. The local computer store is backlogged removing Windows 10 and restoring their customer's previous operating system.
  10. I check in on this forum a couple of times of year, I was sorry to read about the problems ATX users were experiencing, especially for a company like CCH behind ATX. For what it's worth, this is my story... I used a program called Dunphy Systems until Don sold out to Creative Solutions, it was a sad day for me when I learned this, it was a great program and I had used it since 1985. I searched for a "forms based" entry system and signed up for ATX for 2005 or 2006. ATX was still owned by a partnership then and it was announced that they were being purchased by CCH, I realized I still needed to continue my search as I did not think CCH would actually keep ATX going. ProSeries was offering a discount for ATX users and since I had my ATX invoice, I used the offer to jump ship to ProSeries, without ever getting past the ATX demo. While I did not like that I was competing with myself, as Intuit was telling people they could do their own taxes, I soon realized that for the returns I did, people did not even want to attempt to do them on their own. I have stayed with ProSeries ever since and I have to admit their program is excellent, I use the unlimited 1040 and all States, around $1,900 with the additional Tax Organizer per year. For the last 4 years I also have used Drake's PPR for up to 15 returns which is what I use for Fiduciary, Corp, Partnerships. Any additional returns over 15 are paid per each. I have considered using only ProSeries, as they also offer a pay per return feature for non-1040 returns, plus I'm familiar with ProSeries. My only complaint with Drake is that you have to click on "View" to see the return, although it is displayed very fast, and I have gotten used to it. Drake seems to be more of a family-oriented Company and if I ever have a question, I can quickly speak to a real person who always has an answer. I hope all of you have a better tax season next year. I'm sure that we will all continue to see changes as the tax software "Consolidation" continues.
  11. I signed up for ATX MAX and then took the 3 year deal offered by ProSeries to switch from ATX, locked in for about $1,400 a year which included the organizer, forms, and tax research. 2008 was my last year at the special price, received a call from Intuit telling me that the current price for what I was using is $4,449 per year, but they will give me 30% off, so my cost will be $3,114.30 for the 2009 tax program. I guess I was getting a very good deal, I paid $4,200 instead of $9,343 over the last 3 years. For 2008, I never called, contacted or posted any support questions for Intuit. I used the Forms program once and never used the tax research. I have to admit, doing a multi-state return in ProSeries really is impressive. They do offer lots of other options that can drastically reduce the cost, but they can't get close to TRX pricing. Now I have to admit the $299 ATX MAX through TRX is tempting. Most tax research can be found at no cost and forms are readily available on the net. I might have to move up to Total Office so I still have business efiling, although I probably could live without that even. I really would like some input from anyone here who currently uses both ATX and ProSeries for some practical information on the differences. Thanks.
  12. Initial costs: Payroll $3,000 to $5,000 Insurance $ 200 to $400 I think if that's your payroll cost, you're going to need a lot more liability insurance.
  13. Randall, Many many years ago they used to have "Dot Matrix" printers. These printers, while being faster than typing, were not what you would call "graphically friendly." Many software packages had to print on tractor fed paper using these printers. You had to use "Overlays," which were the original tax form printed on a thin sheet of thin plastic. You then took the proper form, placed it on top of the dot matrix printed sheet, hoped that everything lined up, placed it in a copy machine and you could produce a completed page of your tax return. Repeat this process for each page of the return and within a reasonable length of time, you could have a complete return. You also knew there was no way your clients would even think of doing this on their own. It sounds almost like using a hand printing press in today's world, but it really was pretty slick compared to completing the form by hand. My copy machine also cost $4,500.00 and my first laser printer was $2,500.00 and I also had to buy a "Tax Font" cartridge to produce the graphics, which was an additional $250. My HP2420 printer was around $800 and is pretty quick.
  14. 1979: Pencil & calculator. Closed my share of Corporate books by hand. Computax for the more complicated returns. 1984: Very radical decision, used Dunphy Systems, Inc. in house on a PC, never sent out a return again for processing. 2006: Notified that Dunphy was bought by Thomson. In 21 years with Dunphy, I had one return not calculated correctly. Don Dunphy sent me a check for $5.00 to refund my overpaid EFT fee, written by hand and signed by him in October 2006. I still have that uncashed check as a reminder that sometimes you get more than you pay for. I did very well using his software and maybe contacted them once or twice a year. Dunphy was always a DOS based program and didn't offer a lot of bells and whistles, but I could prepare a complex return quickly and it produced a great looking finished product for the client. ProSeries for 2006 tax year. I don't like buying from Intuit, who tells their customers they don't need me. At the same time, I really like ProSeries. I was in awe of the ease of preparing a single client with the 1040 and 3 states.
  15. I think the story goes something like this: The person who owned DOS would not meet with IBM and Microsoft. I think he kept them waiting or told them he was out to lunch or something similar. IBM asked Gates if Microsoft had a DOS program and he told them they did, when actually they did not. MSDOS was later sold or licensed to IBM and it was very, very similar to the original DOS. IBM then paid Microsoft to develop a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for them and spent untold amounts. Later Microsoft started selling Windows and there were all kinds of lawsuits between IBM and Microsoft, which went on for years. Also Apple was suing for stealing their idea of using GUI. The really funny thing is Xerox, (remember Xerox?) was way ahead in development many years before. Xerox had a think tank or skunkworks for developing new products. Apparently Jobs was given a tour of some kind and was shown both their work on GUI and a simple pointing device to operate it, which we now use everyday. A good lesson can be learned that no matter how great your ideas may be, action is required to make them a useful reality. There are idea people and there are action people. You will need both to develop a great new tax program. Here's a radical idea: Have the tax program customers own the company.
  16. Surely, someone must know a "Reverse Engineering" whiz.
  17. My Story: I used the same software from 1984 through 2005. It was bought by Thomson and I got my renewal like it was just expected that I was now their customer. WRONG! I reviewed at least 7 other tax software programs and liked ATX along with the Original Support Board. I switched to ATX (MAX) to prepare the 06 returns and within days found out bought out by CCH. Very shortly announced they bought TaxWise. Decided right then I would not use ATX. Received offer from ProSeries for 3 year locked in price for ATX users, which I took and used to prepare my 06 returns. I am using them for the 07 returns. I have to say, after using ProSeries for 06, I would not switch back to my old software, I did not even experience the year-end efiling problems that others did. Mine were a little slower, but they all were sent. Anyway, I still check on this board for the comaradarie and information you all share. I was also hoping that ATX would continue to get better under CCH and be an alternative for me if I needed it. I did not like reading about the layoffs in Maine, darn shame. I spent an hour on the TaxWise site, where you can run the program right from the website. I used TaxWise around 93 to 97 to prepare Forms 5500, so I was ready for a big change. After spending time working with their program, I have a hard time thinking a tax professional would use this program. It is clearly designed for a non-tax professional. It appears it's written for a data input person with very little tax knowledge. Anyway all of you former ATX employees, get together and come up with some tax software and I'll be your first customer. I really don't want to fatten up Intuit, CCH or Thomson any more than they are! Good luck to you good people of Maine, you deserve better!
  18. I was just trying to give some information on my experience. I'm sure that we will all face changes in the future regarding tax preparation software. If Dunphy had not been bought out, I would probably still be using it. After using ProSeries for 2006, I would not go back to Dunphy if I could. I don't know about ProSeries 3 years ago, but there were significant improvements in the 2006 over the 2005 program. I'm not knocking ATX either, as I did not use it in 2006. If I look at their product in the future, I'm sure the 2008 program will be different from the 2005 version I tried.
  19. I originally posted on the ATX board last year when Dunphy was bought out by Creative Solutions. I obtained at least 8 tax program demos, as switching software and conversions are something I only wanted to do once. I bought ATX Max on the earlybird offer and then found out they were bought out by CCH. ProSystemFX by CCH was one of the demos I tried and did not like, not to mention the high price. I thought ATX would be a good alternative product for CCH. When CCH announced that they had also purchased Tax Wise, I realized I could not afford the time investment in ATX only for it to become TAXATX Wise, ATX Wise, Wise ATX, or some other combination. I then decicded to use ProSeries offer to ATX users of $1,000 for the next 3 years for the 1040, 1041, 1065, 1120, 1120-S. forms package, tax research, unlimited e-filing. When I added on the Client Organizer, I'm around $1,400 total. Yes, I know Intuit could care less about me, I know they make Turbo Tax, I know they adverstise that you can do your own taxes, I know they have some sort of free access to their software. I also needed to use software that was not going to be bought out, combined, merged, improved into something I had to relearn. I did not use ATX long enough to form an opinion, other than working with their tech support it took a solid day to get it to run on my new laptop. I worked weeks with them to get a Dunphy conversion that was not usable and finally realized that I would just have to reenter all of my clients if I went with ATX (Name, address, social security numbers and birth dates would have been nice, ATX!) One of the main reasons I went with ATX the first time was the quality and free flow of information on their board (in essence, free support from actual users.) The bottom line is I jumped ship and went with ProSeries. I never thought I would get up to speed with ProSeries. The entry process took at least 50% longer than Dunphy which is to be expected, as I used Dunphy from 1985 through 2005. By March 1, I was just as fast with ProSeries and was impressed with it, especially on multi-state returns and their review and final checking. If a form is missing required input, it appears in red on the side next to the Form name. I used it for a client that had the Federal, and States of MI, MS and CA and was very impressed with how it functioned. The few State returns I did with ATX were very poor, almost to the point where I had to enter all of the information, especially Michigan. Another advantage to ProSeries that I can see is it appears to have an excellent data entry format which will be helpful for me to add employees. I use it in the form entry format, which I'm used to from Dunphy. I looked at ATX's data entry format and found that to be very poor. As for any efiling problems, I did notice on the 17th that it took around 30 seconds to transmit my returns instead of 10 seconds using my high speed connection. I know there are a lot of very helpful and good people using ATX and wish all of you the best, but I could not believe that CCH would close their board down with 2 weeks to go.
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