Abby Normal

You should switch to SSDs. The prices have come down considerably and the performance leaves HDs in the dust.

I would hope the state calc of the penalty would be simpler than the federal one, but having prepared a few NJ returns, I'm not betting on it.

The Fingertip Tax Facts tables do too. Here's the link for the Tax Book tables: http://www.thetaxbook.com/updates/TheTaxBook/Updates/2018-01-15_Withholding_Tables_for_2018.pdf

I believe ATX does that automatically for you when you save the amended return, but I prefer it before the name so it shows in the tab at the top for open returns. Sometimes I'd have both the old return and the amended return open and it's easier to see you're in the file if it says Amended at the beginning.

If you go with 2 files, prepend the name of the original return with something like ***OLD***. Then when you sort be name, these will be at the top, and easy to uncheck if you're doing some mass process. Most ATX users only rollover clients as they come in, until it's time for extensions.

Alternately, you can just add the 1040X to the original file and not utilize the amended feature of ATX. That's what we do because we prefer to just have one file. The downside to doing this is you have to manually enter the numbers in the original column but we still prefer it. And, welcome!

You've got to be kidding me.

Qualified transportation fringe benefit doesn't include tolls, so it would have have to be additional income to the employee. The 100 + 155 pretax is the monthly limit of $255 for parking.

I've had this PDF on my desktop since January: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/n1036.pdf Shame about Ellicott City. I live near there and like to visit occasionally. Super sad that the helpful national guard man got swept away. Never under estimate the power of flowing water.

Not really. If AMT applies, they weren't deducting the 2% items anyway. Plus you can't arbitrarily go to your employer and tell them you want to be a 1099 contractor. And do you really want to give up health insurance, unemployment insurance, 401k match, etc. plus pay the employers half of Social Security and Medicare? Tax rate decreases and increased credits offset the loss of these deductions in most cases, so at least in that sense, it was a simplification. Besides, there were a lot of made up expenses in the 2% category.

I have a single parent pilot that I thought was screwed because SALT caused them to lose 7k in deductions and 2% cost them another 9k in deductions, plus they lost 12k in exemptions, so taxable income was 28k higher. Tax did go up by 5k but AMT went down by 6k. So they really just replaced the regular tax with the AMT tax which never allowed either of those deductions. And I suspect many SALT limited clients are in similar situations. And in this case, they also got 4k in child tax credits until the kids get a little older.

So true!

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-april-2018-update-problems-users-struggle-with-mystery-black-screen/

And every time I've done that, the client gets a letter saying 'you already filed the 2553'.

Sorry.

I find the Base and Better ATX system requirements to be ridiculously low. The Best should be the minimum. I have 16GB RAM and often run at 50% used. If I only had 8GB I'd be running out of RAM.

Which version of windows?

Seems so simple, doesn't it.

I think this year, the later you take CPE, the better.

Tick tock.

Just get the fastest computer you can buy and definitely get an SSD. I have 10 years of ATX installed on a server/workstation, running on an i7 3.5Ghz with 16GB of RAM, but you're mostly only running 1 or 2 years at any time.

Acting IRS Commissioner David Kautter has said the IRS expects to issue guidance on the Code Sec 199A passthrough deduction in July

I think we're still waiting on the IRS for interpretation.

Didn't you learn from Obama that using pronouns like 'it' or 'that' can cause you a lot of grief? Care to clarify? https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/needleman-the-dentist/n9232 Skip to 1:33 after the ad plays.

Sales changed and many expenses changed. They had COGS which I don't get at all. It went from almost 20k in profit down to less than 400. Taxpayer did make mincemeat out of QBSE with duplicate transactions, missing transactions, personal transactions, etc., but he was able to export it to an excel sheet that I could fix up easily enough.