Gail in Virginia

I agree, although I normally would drop collision before I dropped comprehensive.

I doubt it was a question of "letting" her shovel snow. At her age she probably does as she pleases and her son does as she tells him.

All the time. I am glad the damage was not any worse!

I received it yesterday. Seemed like he said nothing with a lot of words and catch phrases to me. I hope that they do get ATX working properly next year, but with the way the fixes for 2012 are working, I can;t say that I have any confidence at all that it will be appropriate for my office since we are networked. i hope at least some of the beta testers are running a domain network environment.

And as long as we are dreaming, could we also require that if a law is so obscure it cannot be understood by an intelligent high school graduate, it cannot be passed?

I am looking at Thomson-Reuters PPC DeskBook series for part of my research needs. I have used the one for 990's for several years. Has anyone else used them (particularly on-line) and what do you think?

There are all kinds of reasons why people don't get a specific job they have applied for, but I think we all know of people who could get some job but as long as they can draw unemployment, they won't accept anything that pays less than they were making before, or doesn't have benefits, or involves some kind of work they don't want to do, etc. I can understand that to a point but with unemployment benefits continually being extended some of these people will find that their skills are outdated by the time they finally have to accept a job and their earning power will be reduced. And the longer they stay on the unemployment rolls, the less attractive they are to potential employers. I don't think extended benefits to the point they have been extended really helps anyone. We have tremendous unemployment in this area due to the closing of all of the furniture factories that used to be located in the US. I don't pretend to know what the answer to this problem is, but handing people a check to not work doesn't seem to be the answer.

We used to have our office in the house. One year a client's mother called and told us her son had brought his taxes by early that morning and left them for us to do (this was on April 14.) I went out to look for them and found that he had carefully placed them inside the grill. Good thing his mother called. By the way, his mother was in her 80s then, and he was in his early 50s. Old enough to know better? Clients like those are part of the fun, right?

Thanks for the warning Jack! I had been looking for the update to fix some back up issues but I will not install it now!

Now that's funny!

And even without updating forms I am getting a message that the programs is going to update automatically. I can postpone for up to four hours but it looks like I will have to install it soon I was trying to wait until after May 15

It is a peculiarity of the system we live under that for criminal charges you are presumed innocent until proven guilty; for taxes and fees assessed by our governments, you are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

I think it is a golf community in the Tennessee smoky mountains. I really didn't ask for a lot of details.

She is not talking about contributing just the right to use them, but her entire interest.

Client called yesterday and wants to know how much of a tax deduction she can get if she donates three fixed weeks with Wyndham Resorts to a charity (if she can find a charity that will take it.) Her motive is not charitable -she wants to get out of obligation for paying maintenance fees and taxes on the properties. Properties were purchased by her father many years ago, and he gave them to her shortly before he passed away since he was no longer able to travel and use them. My reaction is that if there is no market for selling them, the FMV is 0 and there will be no deduction. Anybody have a different take on this, or know where to look to find out more?

Jack,. I am really interested in hearing what you find out. We run in a server environment also, and I don't have a database expert. But some of what I have heard about the Raven database being used in this application makes me nervous about whether or not ATX will ever be truly suitable for my environment as long as that is the platform they use. They might be. They might not. In the meantime, we are signed up with Pro Series for next year but they are not going to bill us until November and we can change our minds up until the software is released. That just allowed me to lock in the early price. I still don't understand how the types and severity of problems can be so different from one user to the next. Some people have next to no issues, some have an almost inoperable program, and it seems there is everything in between that range.

I like that advice KC! Too often in a rush to "fix" the problem, we don't listen to what actually bothers the client about the situation. This is great advice.

Joel, I did not use those. I have noticed however, that some reports I used to get (such as non-returning client) don't seem to be there anymore. I also noticed this year that when I password protect a return, that does not protect the information from anyone with access to the software looking at it in the Tax Warehouse. That may have been the case all along, but sort of makes password protection useless. I feel sure there are features that I would miss if I wasn't so frustrated so early in the season that all i wanted to do by the end was just get the blasted return to open! We are definitely going to be looking this summer. I already have copies of Drake and ProSeries on my desk. Like most accountants, I hate changing software but if there is any chance I am going to want to change, I want to be looking now, decide for sure by August and be ready to go by December. I don't want another year like this past year. Tax season was a whole year long, wasn't it? Gail

Our office is in between two houses. We have had both FedEx and UPS drop packages off at the houses on either side of us, and the delivery receipt for the sender shows that it has been delivered because they scanned it when they threw it out the door of the truck. One FedEx overnight delivery of a client's tax information was placed on the basement steps of our neighbor, and sat there for a week until the client called to see how we were getting along and we started hunting for where the package had been delivered. The USPS is not perfect, but for what they charge, I think they usually do an excellent job. They could probably be more efficient if they were allowed to develop their own business model instead of being constrained by Congress to operate a certain way.

You have a point, JohnH, but I am pretty sure that even though ATX personnel don't post on this board, they are looking at it at least occasionally and are seeing that their early renewal numbers are not necessarily indicative of total renewals the way they might have been in the past. I don't yet know what I am going to do; while the software worked for me this year (but just barely!) we are in a networked environment and some of the comments about the Raven DB not being designed to work in a network environment make me a little nervous that it is never going to be quite right for me. On the other hand, by the end of tax season the only issue I was really seeing was that the software s still slow to open, close and input. I just don't know yet but I will be looking at what else is available and at what price. So far, I don't see much out there that is as comprehensive for the price. I just can't take another season like this past one.

My "vacation" after tax season was that I took time to go to the dentist and the eye doctor. We too are working on quarterly payroll filings and catching up on our paperwork. We also do a few 990's for calendar year organizations that will be due by May 15. As Roseanne Rosannadanna (sp?) used to say, "It's always something..."

I am not sure that it means anything. If you search the same site for TaxWise it also returns no results. The Small Firms Services has a separate website where information about ATX and TaxWise is available. So not saying they will be around or they won't be around, but I don't think the main CCH website lack of information means a whole lot.

Personally I don't think eic has anything to do with income tax. My suggestion is that if it is supposed to "refund" the social security deducted from low wage earners, why not just change the way social security is collected? Start collecting on wages above a certain amount with no ceiling. Then we don't have to audit our clients, employers can better afford more entry level workers and that might stimulate the economy. And with no ceiling social security shoud not be negatively impacted.

This year ATX unbundled all of the payroll forms into a separate program that had to be downloaded from the Internet to install. The good news is that it seems to be on the old platform and doesn't have the issues that the tax software has.

And probably will still be in draft form when we have to start filing returns using it.