jshtax

We only send out the organizer at the request of the client.

Why cant they form a partnership and dad takes a loss equal to the investment by having a % of ownership. I get we are supposed to uphold the law but clients do not think and need us to do the thinking for them at times. How long ago was money given?

Sitting around 1400 files. He suggested we rewire the office to speed up the network.

This is a known issue.  It is an internal problem with the ATX program.  There is, as of right now, no fix in the future.  Just click on retry and go forward.

I made the mistake of talking to ATX and some person remoted in and reinstalled 2013 now I have to reset all my users and settings and print packets and so forth. I could track him down and beat him with a wet noodle. 

Is anyone else continuing to have the error box pop up numerous times during a return saying and error was encountered while communicating with the ATX server? I get it sometime 10 or more times when trying to do something like error check or efile. Any help would be appreciated.

I enter the credit amount type, entity name, check small business credit and then enter the amount. Credit flows to 1040 but I get an error message when trying to efile that all small business credits must be carryforwards. This is for increasing research credit and is entered the same way as 2012-2011 etc and yes I have the amount of income entered or it would not flow to 1040. Is this credit no longer a small business credit or is the software goofed up?

Why not move the distributions to an expense and pick up the distributions as income on schedule C?

We got our 10% renewal today as well.

I have never been one to go to these types of events but I have been thinking I might be able to walk away with a positive experience. What all goes on at a

Won't work. The return has already been filed, so there's no way to avail themselves of the tax benefits of the deduction for the 2013 year.

it has worked in the past. I had a client tell me that for 5 years we took a deduction he never contributed the money.

don't forget that self rental is not a passive activity.

Nice catch, I always try to zero out the rental activity so the losses can be deductible but on the flip side if you have other passive losses and this is a nonpassive gain they cant offset each other.

If the sep resulted in a few thousand dollars of additional tax I would notify my E&O carrier of a potential problem.

The other option is just fund the SEP and move on. As long as the contribution is noted as a prior year and not current year it wont be an issue.

I just love when people make mistakes in the office I am not aware of until the client gives me an ear full.

A client came to pay and pick up their returns on April 9th. Their return was supposed to be extended but the person in the office that handles submitting the electronic returns failed to pick up on the extension and filed the return when they saw it was marked paid. The client is furious for 2 reasons: 1. They were not able to pay and were going to pay at the time the return was filed knowing it will include penalties and interest but they would not "be in the cross hairs of the IRS for collections" and 2. they needed the additional time to fund a retirement account(SEP IRA). How would you guys handle this situation?

They have a bunch of hood rats working there now. I can't get a call from anyone at ATX after telling ATX Catherine or someone that they were full of shit and they can take their terms of service agreement and shove it up their asses.

Has anyone been offered a renewal for next year?

Tell him the truth. The very fact he is a schedule c makes him more likely to be audited than anything else in the tax code. I had an agent tell a client this year the only reason they were audited is becuae they filed a sch c.

I just found out its midnight where the software company is located not where the preparer is located. There is a west coast company that charges 30-40 per rtn to allow east coaster the extra few hours to submit.

What is this name control thing? How is it generated? I think I have a rejection currently because of a bad name control and I do not recall doing anything to establish a name control.

An auditor told us the only CERTAIN way to verify an extension is the electronic acknowledgement. Certified does not cut it. "The card does not verify what was in the envelope." We have lost the argument for appealing late filing notices when the extension was mailed by Certified Mail just as I described. The only information that works is the electronic acknowledgment.

We e-filed every extension this year. A little more work, but the process will be smoother next year as the forms rollover. We extended 15 corporate and 300 personal.

This is where the IRS is f'd up. They have accepted the certified extension for us in the past.

There are only 5-10 returns I do without an appointment. They are restaurants that send me financials and I knock them out at my leisure. The rest are appointments and our schedule does not allow time to circle back around. I have also thought of cutting off appointments April 5th to give 2 weeks to finalize returns in progress. Last night was an eye opener trying to roll returns over then great extensions. It wasn't terrible but there has to be a better way. We still paper file to get a certified receipt for those just in case moments.

We deal with client on an appointment basis every 2 hours. If a client comes in and does not have all their documents(missing k1, 1099, etc...) we try to accommodate them by the 15th. THIS STRESSES THE F OUT OF US. My thoughts for next year is 1 of 2 things. 1. Hire someone that once an appointment is finished you bring them in and explain what is missing and have them track the people down for missing documents and let them finalize the return and review with the preparer or 2. just tell people at the time of their meeting if you cant get it back by a certain date there is no guarantee it will be ready by the 15th?

Also....seeing how the extensions are a giant pain especially when they client has not come in as of 4/15 how do you guys approach extensions?

1. file for everyone in your system even if you have not heard from them?

2. only file for those that have contacted you or are still in progress?

3. print out all extensions at start of season for all clients from previous year and if they are not in by 4/15 mail the remaining ones in.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Do multiple donations each under $5000. 5 $4000 donations is $20,000

Just tell them these are my fees take them or leave them.

I might have 3-5 client out of 1,000 that get EIC and that is usually due to depreciation write offs. I had a compliance audit for 8879 and they just asked we have both signatures for married people or get the signature emailed or faxed to us for those that do not come in for their meeting. Not once did the compliance agent ask to see proof of how I knew who the people were. Where in circular 230 does it say I have to keep a proof of the people I do work for? Last I checked I was only required to keep a list of the people I do work for and their SS #.