Abby Normal

Great idea! Since I was challenged (I think), I choose squirt guns filled with Tequila. Someone bring limes, Triple Sec and ice!

These rules are complicated as the tax code!

I want RitaB on my side and she can give my worthy opponent a good luck hug before the duel.

Here's the video I watched. The woman's eyes crack me up. She looks petrified. https://www.drakesoftware.com/service-learning/videos/new-features-for-drake-tax-2016/ And, if these are the highlights of the improvements, I'm sorry, but that's just pathetic.

Mickey Mouse: 1. Drake finally added a federal withholding schedule in 2016. Something that should have been there for decades. 2. Drake just added a charitable contributions carryover schedule. Seriously? If they are just getting around to adding such basic things as the above, I can't imagine they'll handle my complex K1s from trusts and other high end issues that my clients have.

No, mine are all same mailing address and physical address. I wish they wouldn't break this stuff on a Friday so we can't get it fixed until next week. I only posted on ATX forums. I'm going to email support now.

No Silver Spring. So far just town of Easton. An Easton return went thru on Thursday at midnight. I should try sending it with no town. It doesn't change the tax. Doing a Howard County with no town this afternoon. I'll update when that gets accepted/rejected.

Can't get any MD returns accepted. Just started last night. We are using the new town names from the drop down list. Here is the error: R000-00000-040 Maryland Individual Resident The 'http://www.irs.gov/efile:CityTownOrTaxingArea' element is invalid - The value 'Town of Easton' is invalid according to its datatype 'http://www.irs.gov/efile:MDCityTownAreaType' - The Enumeration constraint failed

Your only hope is to call the IRS payments department... but I'd drain (or even close) the account just in case.

This is the best site I've found for checking routing numbers: http://www.routingtransitnumbers.com/ I like to copy/paste the number entered in ATX to this website to verify it.

Entering W2 info: Auto-calc Box 3 and 5 Social Security wages & Medicare wages If you don't manually enter wages in Box 3 and Box 5, when you enter in Box 7 Social Security tips and/or Box 12 retirement amounts, Box 3 & Box 5 wages will be adjusted automatically.

Does anyone here have Advantage with 'concierge support'? Is ATX making support so bad that you have to cough up 3 grand+ just to get decent support?

Oooo! We need a stickied post for real estate records by state! They really come in handy. I have a a helluva time finding real estate records in some states. A lot of states keep them by county instead of statewide. Delaware and Florida come to mind. Here's MD: http://sdat.dat.maryland.gov/RealProperty/Pages/default.aspx And here's MD business entity search: https://egov.maryland.gov/BusinessExpress/EntitySearch

When a new individual client comes in, we have a checklist for setting them up. One thing we check is the state real estate records for their house (fortunately, MD has a very nice website for doing this). We need to know if they're in town limits, but we also check whose name the house is in, when they bought it, how much they paid, how many square feet the home is, and whether they've applied for the homestead tax credit. So far this year, two new clients had not applied for the homestead credit. This can save them 100s or even 1,000s a year in real estate taxes. Just an FYI as a value added service, in case your state has a similar situation.

ATX should certainly fix it for those who want to use it, and, at the very least, WARN people that it does not work.

Thanks, Rich!

Anybody that works on anything for an hour without saving, gets what they deserve. You once accused me of saving too often! Ha! No. Such. Thing. And, I've never had ATX crash where I couldn't save my return before closing.

Is it possible to be both? I did a quick search and didn't find anything definitive, so I'm saying yes.

But if it didn't also save the return, you'd have a backup but still no return. And I know you can close a return without saving because I play around in returns all the time and close without saving my changes. I'm in the opposite camp. I'm so glad ATX lets you turn off autosave. I always complained about this with other software I used. Sometimes, you just screw up and need to close the return without saving.

One question I couldn't find the answer to was, if you sell an easement for less than FMV can you take a charitable contribution for the difference?

Those annuity sales reps must get big commissions on those damn things.

There's an insane tax preparer in my county who advised a retired lady turned 'artist' to start an S corp and rent a space so she'd look like a real business and be able to deduct huge losses. She sells about $500 of paintings each year. Fortunately she came to me before she did put any assets into the S corp, but she's still paying rent on that lease. I explained to her that buying deductions is a losing game and a hobby is still a hobby even if you put it in an S corp.

Elderly client had half a million in a savings account. Someone talked him into investing in 2015. 2015 was a down year so he sold everything after losing 80k. BUT the investments that the Wall St. broker put him in paid 55k in dividends. He didn't need the income! So he lost money overall but still has to pay a lot of tax. And he'll never live long enough to deduct that 80k at 3k per year. Somehow, we never got the 1099, so we just got an IRS notice... with a substantial understatement penalty. He'd be miles ahead if that money was still in his savings account. TGIF!

It's been awhile since I've done one, but the gist is that tax attributes (loss carryovers, asset basis, etc.) are reduced by the amount of debt cancelled in a bankruptcy. See for 982.