Lee B

Not so fast, according to this technet post from Microsoft, they have released patches for both Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/05/12/customer-guidance-for-wannacrypt-attacks/?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

Here is a link to an article in Accounting Today that highlights the specific procedures which need to be followed : https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/irs-offers-guidance-to-wolters-kluwer-users-on-tax-extensions-after-cch-outage

Not only with their customers but also internally ! Before I left ATX, I had the same sales rep for about 6 years. The last time I talked to him, I had a very frank discussion about the reasons I was leaving. He was pretty upfront about what was going on within the ATX organization and he was pretty frustrated about the unresponsiveness of upper management !

The classification of the excavation costs depends on the functional intent and usage. If the excavation was required to provide a sound footing for the Ice Cream Stand and to bring in the plumbing and electrical then it's clearly part of leasehold improvements.

Medlin does not efile Forms 94x.

I used Drake Accounting for 2018 "on the fly" W-2s and 4th quarter 2018 Form 94x. It was acceptable but slow and quirky. After tax season was over, I spent most of 3 days trying to get ATF and Live Payroll up and running. I ran into several serious problems related to Oregon Payroll taxes. Drake Accounting Support answered the phone quickly and were friendly. However, their knowledge or Oregon Payroll was very limited. I explained in detail 3 or 4 times what the problems were and was told they would pass on my comments The problems still haven't been fixed and no one has contacted me. My conclusion is Drake Accounting Support has room for a lot of improvement. I do not recommend Drake Accounting to be used for any Live or ATF Payroll applications. The "Fill in the Form" applications are OK for limited use. Instead, I have switched over to Medlin Professional Payroll in far less time with excellent support. Actually I am very pleased with Medlin's Payroll Software and highly recommend it !

It seems to me that the texting of a onetime 8 digit mixed number and letter password would be sufficient ! Having their app on my smart phone just creates another weak point especially since security on smart phones basically sucks !

Prior to my leaving ATX, they did ,because they offered backup copies of all our efiled returns for $ 99.00. I definitely remember ATX doing that for 2016 & 2015 tax returns and possibly 2014.

An interesting question, since you do have the option to paper file ?

You can add Drake Accounting for an additional $100, which does do 1099s. However for this tax season Drake did not do bulk efiling of 1099s like ATX Payroll Compliance. You needed to have a TCC code to submit your 1099s to the FIRE system. Supposedly bulk efiling of the 94x s and 1099s for next tax season is under active consideration.

Specifically, the law allows the IRS 10 years to collect the SRP, however it does not allow late payment penalties, liens, levies or criminal penalties.

My understanding is a bit different. The tax is billed and any refunds will be used to offset the tax owed. I think it was a decision at the Treasury Department level, to not actively pursue collection.

"To help mitigate the risk of infection, Sophos recommended putting any machines using RDP behind a VPN, and to employ two factor authentication (2FA) to replace all admin password" Interesting since Microsoft has announced that it is moving away from using passwords. I suspect we will all be moving away from passwords to 2 factor authentication or even more complicated sign on requirements.

Copied from one of the online posters to the previous link: "One of my customers is one of CCH’s customers and he was told by their support they got hit with Mega Cortex Ransomware yesterday"

It wouldn't surprise me. ATX has a long history of cutting corners including using a shareware database when they rewrote the program which caused the 2012 debacle !

Just wondering, what browser and search engine do you use ?

Three new tax bills have been voted out of the House Ways and Means Committee with broad bipartisan support with zero "no" votes: https://www.taxprotoday.com/opinion/2019-federal-tax-legislation-starting-to-take-shape?feed=00000158-3f5d-dcbd-abf8-ff7f12270000 I found the most interesting provisions to be: 1. Repeal of maximum age for IRA Contributions ! 2. Change age to begin RMDs from 70 1/2 to 72 ! 3. Increase Failure To File Penalties ! 4. Tighten and Restrict Distribution Rules for Beneficiaries of Qualified Retirement Plans and IRAs ! Also significant is no movement on any of the Tax Extenders or any of the TCJA Technical Corrections !

Interesting, my TCC, that I received early this year is 5 digits( 3 numbers, a letter, followed by 1 number). I don't have a PIN, I applied by fax before Christmas and received a letter in January.

Your potential problem with this scenario is "when was the investment deemed to be unrecoverable"?

It may be something as simple as one of the employees got married and their last name was changed in your client's payroll system but not in the SS system.

Here is a link to an article in CPA Practice Advisor about this issue: https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/payroll/article/12441373/employers-ssn-nomatch-letters-are-back

The last 2 or 3 years with ATX, when I had problems with the efiling of Oregon Business returns due to software glitches, I would get a response in 2 or 3 days and a fix in a week. What would upset me the most was, they would never acknowledge that a problem even existed and they would never let me know when it was fixed. All of a sudden after a week or so of waiting the problem would magically go away and I could efile.

I am always puzzled by posts like this, because I currently have my tax program, my payroll program, my accounting program and this website all open on my Win 7 Pro 64 bit I 3 CPU with 8 Gig of Ram and a 500 Gig SSD and everything is running fine ?

I have received several phone calls that spoofed my own phone number.

I also checked it out, but as small business users, we do not qualify and will not be offered "extended paid support" Microsoft will only be offering "extended paid support" to corporate accounts etc. There are tech articles online which tell you how to "spoof" MS and move up a classification so that you can buy "extended paid support'!