Gail in Virginia

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Just curious - do you have pink eyes?

Not every young person is totally ignorant of the Constitution. When my son's third grade teachers told me that hand-writing was not important because kids now would all use computers when they grew up, I used the following summer to work on his handwriting by having him copy the Constitution out in cursive. I am not saying that he remembers it all, but he has at least been exposed to it. (But he was not very happy with me that summer.)

With our business and farm clients, we don't have a lot of choice about giving them the depreciation detail here in Franklin County VA because the local commissioner of the revenue requires that the depreciation schedule and Sch C. F. or page 1 and 2 of 1120 or 1065 be attached to the personal property tax forms before they are filed. Therefore, if we forget to give them out we know they will be calling and asking for them. Easier to give them a copy on the first pass.

Congratulations! I am beginning to be very envious, and will have to step up my postings!

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Rocky Mount, VA 1. County seat of Franklin County, Moonshine Capital of the World 2. Home of Jubal Anderson Early, confederate General and Savior of Lynchburg 3. One end of the Crooked Road, Virginia's Heritage Music Trail Not bad for such a small town!

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I think a lot of us would like to see an alternative software that is more along the lines of what ATX used to be, but I hope that we are not putting too much pressure on Mel to have the perfect software that makes everybody happy all the time - I don't think that can be done, no matter how good he is!

The ad that I hear on the radio around here has them checking the return prepared by a CPA and finding numerous errors - in fact 4 out of 5 returns they check have errors! I am not a CPA, and they can make errors just like anyone else, but to imply that people hired to generate RALS for the BLock empire (and the ads to hire them even say "no experience necessary") are doing a better job than people who train for years, and work at this year round, makes me furious! Now that I have vented, back to work.

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But some of the questions I had actually answered in other places and the form was merely picking up those answers. I did not have a problem with it answering that the taxpayer and spouse had social security numbers, when I had entered social security numbers for them. I feel that my due diligence applies to the whole return, not just EIC.

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This rule also applies to Fishermen. And for the rule to apply, 2/3 of gross income has to be from farming or fishing.

Thank you, OldJack, those are great!

Julie, you make some good points. I have no problem with EIC, and even those who play the system by working only enough to qualify for the maximum are going to play the system some way. If it wasn't EIC, it would be welfare or food stamps themselves. I have heard from car dealers about people buying cars with their refund checks, so I am sure that is how some EIC money is spent. And it is very hard for me to save money sometimes, so I can imagine if I were just barely scraping by how difficult it would be. Our tax system has always been designed to take more money from the wealthy (at least in theory) so that it can be given to the poor (although not always as directly as with EIC). But this certainly seems to be a hot button with some preparers - both for and against. I wish I knew all the answers. :dunno:

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See the suggestion I made under the thread e-file rejection for syncing the files with the EFC.

Have you tried "syncing" your files with ATX's to see if the status changes? On the E-file manager, under support, click on customer service utilities and then synchronize efiles with EFC. I don't like to do this when I have a lot of files, but hopefully this early you don't have many, and sometimes there isn't any choice. If this doesn't work, maybe someone else can suggest something.

As long as we are on this subject, I am curious about something that some of you may have more experience with. To my mind, the advance EIC would be more beneficial by providing the working poor with some extra money for food and other necessities throughout the year. However, I have never seen advanced EIC on any of my clients' returns/W-2's. Now I admit that for the most part my clientele is not in the EIC income range, but I was wondering if the rest of you see Advance EIC used much.

Congratulations, David!

Congrats, Lion! :D

I think that most of our new clients come from word of mouth. Have you tried telling your current 100 clients that you are interested in expanding your business, and asking them to refer their friends and neighbors, particularly anyone who needs year-round bookkeeping services? You might also talk to any clients whose current bookkeeping is a mess because they are too busy running their business to do the bookkeeping and see if they would like to hire you to do it for them. I agree with jainen that if you are serious about taxes, there is no better certification than the EA designation, and the day is coming when some sort of certification will be required. That said, there are a lot of tax preparers with no certification who take the business quite seriously and work hard to keep up and I don't believe, even though I am an EA, that we have any corner on integrity, training or ability. We do, however, have some evidence that at least at one time we knew quite a bit about federal taxes.

There is no college requirement to become an EA. When I became an EA, the test was administered by the IRS with paper and pencil (no calculator allowed!). It is now administered by THomson and is computerized, which allows more flexibility in when to take it. You can also become an EA by working for the IRS in an area that deals with compliance for so many years, then when you leave you can apply to be an EA. You must reapply every 3 years, showing that you have met at least the minimum requirements for CPE in each year, including the new ethics requirement. (72 hours during the three years, with at least 16 hours each year including at least 2 hours of ethics each year.) Professional organizations such as NAEA and NATP and others can be a big help in meeting your CPE requirements, but NAEA requires even more education to maintain your status as a member. To become a CPA in VA, you have to have a Bachelor's in Accounting and at least 150 hours of college credit (this is designed to encourage you to get your master's degree, but it does not require it - yet.) Then you have to pass the test and have so many hours of experience, but as David1980 pointed out, tax preparation is considered experience. One advantage to being an EA is that you can represent clients on tax returns that you did not prepare, so this can open up an area of business doing representation work. I personally have not had much of that come my way, but I know some EA's who more or less specialize in that area. As far as how I got into taxes, my mother owned an H&R Block franchise and I began working for her checking returns when I was 13 years old, and preparing them when I was 14. She sold the Block franchises, and became town treasurer for a few years, doing only a few tax returns for customers that insisted on her. She left the town and opened her own office about the time that I was laid off from my job at Signet Trust Co. (I was offered a job in another city, but chose not to take it because my husband and I were ready to start a family and I did not want to move, or even work for a few years.) By the time I was ready to go back to work, she needed more help and I ended up taking the EA exam and working for her again. I am now working towards my CPA, and planning to take over the business in the next couple of years. Does that answer your question, Kyle? Maybe not typical, but that's my story, at least the short version. ^_^