joelgilb

I am going to miss a number of the people at ATX that I used to speak with in tech support. So far Taxwise support has not come up to the level established by ATX in the past. Hope they improve soon! I also hope that this is not a sign of ATX disappearing like so many other of the tax software products I have used in the past. Tired of changing software and I have seen and used Taxwise and was not happy with it. Maybe its time to go back to Intuit.... Yikes, did I really say that?!

I am filing my first ever CA W2 efile. Like the Fed ATX creates a .asc file with the W2 & W3 information, but I do not know how or where to efile this file. Does it also go to Social Security? And if so, does that mean we file both files with Soc Sec? Any help would be appreciated. Joel

Looks to me like both Old Jack and lbbwest are right and lbbwest, that is exactly what I had asked! Joel

This is just informational. I am not sure how many care, but I am one that has always been concerned by the security risk inherent in internet explorer (IE). For years I have used other browsers because of this and for the last several years I have used Firefox. When attempting to login into ATX's website, I am given the warning that I am required to use IE. Although I Firefox has a plugin to make websites think it is Firefox, it does limit the features of its software. Recently, after several requests to ATX to allow other browsers I got the following response from ATX: "Joel, This is the response I got from the web team The SFS Authentication system will show a warning when you try to login with a browser other than IE. However, if you continue it will allow you to log in and MyATX should work fine with others browsers So while Netscape and Firefox are not officially supported (or tested) for MyATX it should work fine. Regards, Karen Hall ATX Tax Manager" So for anyone else out there that would rather not use IE, Firefox and other browsers should work. Joel

Not sure if they will b able to do that , but it does seem like the best way to do this. Thx Joel

First I agree that OldJack is correct and I can't call this investment interest even with an election. Also, RJM, there is no question that the interest income must be on schedule B, that is where it has to go. As for avoiding the limitation, maybe I did not make myself clear. Father is someone that has taken the standard deduction in past years. Even if he can now itemize due to the interest on this loan, he will lose some of the benefits of the interest deduction as to get benefit from itemized deductions, it has to be more than his standard deduction. Now I do think in my case he will be over, but the increased itemized deduction over the standard will not give him a full offset to the schedule B interest income he has to pick up. I had hoped there was a way to use something like a schedule E to take the interest expense deduction, rather than schedule A. Although I guess I am really stretching here. Maybe there is no alternative and this is just the result though. Anyway. Thanks for the ideas. Joel

Won't investment interest also flow through to the schedule a? And if on sched a, I still have the same problem, his standard deduction will wipe out at least a portion of the deduction. Or will the election let me run it through the Schedule E? And if so, do I still show the interest income on schedule B or on schedule E to offset? Joel

THis response may be a little late for you Deb, but for any others out there, here is another thought. I use a fax service from http://www.packetel.com. For $3.95 per month, they will forward your faxes to your email (actually 2 different emails if needed) in PDF or TIFF format . This allows me all of the following: 1. to archive all my faxes to client folders on my hard drive 2. get my faxes from anywhere I can access email 3. to easily forward faxes to others in email 4. to avoid printing them unless I need to. 5. To easily delete the spam faxes without wasting my telephone time, paper or ink. Now as for sending faxes. Most computers still have a modem where you can fax directly from your PC. If you need a signature, scan one in and use a graphic program to crop it and convert it to JPG or any format your software requires (can even be pasted into ATX). And finally for those item that are not in your PC, get a good scanner, it will also help you electronically archive your client data and should work with ATX's new scan and fill (something I have yet to try out). Joel

Some additional information, ATX's paper also told you how to login as the "ADMIN",however they typed ADMIN in all caps and conveniently forgot to let us know that the site was case sensitive and that ADMIN should be lowercase. This cause me to lock up. To unlock they said they required me to fax them a signed letter on my letterhead to verify it was really me. I told them that was rediculous and was able to get them to unlock me on the phone. Still their new website login procedures are a bit much. Joel

I have purchased old programs from ATX and my recollection was that they only charged me around $20.00. These were years where I used software from another vendor, but now wanted to use consistent software so I did not have to remember how to use the old one. Joel

I have a client that wants to refinance her home to get rid of a Jumbo loan and convert to a standard mortgage with better rates. To this she will need to borrow money from her father and have him put a second on the house. In order to get the funds to lend my client (his daughter), father will need to borrow the money against his home to lend to his daughter. I am trying to see if anyone has any thoughts on how to structure this so that the income from loan to daughter can be offset wit the loan from the bank/mortgage company. Problem I see is that the interest from the loan on dad's house is a schedule A itemized deduction and will most likely not fully offset the schedule B interest income from daughter. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks Joel

Been dealing with ATX's new login procedures myself. Have given several technical support personnel a BIG piece of my mind at how ridiculous their new login procedures are. Most recently I tried to login as an ADMIN, based on the instructions they mailed with my Year End 2006 Archive disk. Per their instructions I was to (additional quotes ' ' added for emphasis): "... 'simply' enter your Client ID then use the name "ADMIN' and any one of your current product installation codes as the password ..." Note the caps on ADMIN! I did exactly as it said and used 2 different install codes, one of which I also tried without the dashes. All failed and then locked up my account. An email to support from their website and I get back: "We will need a letter on Company Letterhead with your request to reset the ADMIN password with your signature faxed to 1-800-834-4859. Once this is received your password will be reset and you will be notified when it has been reset." My response was an angry phone call with a refusal to waste my time sending them a signed letter every time I have trouble with there site, due to their Ridiculous and Excessive login and password procedures. they did help me get in, and to my surprise the only thing I did wrong was to type ADMIN in caps like on their letter, rather than lower case as required by their site! No where on the letter did it say to use lower case. Then I sent the following suggestion: "Your requirement for me to fax changes in with my signature to make changes to my account are EXCESSIVE and a WASTE of my time. I bill out at $300.00 per hour and am a small firm and do not have the time to waste for ridiculous administrative requests! It should be noted that IRS, Social Security, my banks and credit cards, where security is much more of a concern, have not made me jump through such incredible hops to get access to my accounts online. It is extremely frustrating that someone in your administration feels that it is necessary to waste my time and tie my hands to get access to your site. " Thought it might help if more would complain to them.

Wayne, one question, are you using 32 bit Vista or 64 bit Vista. I hear a lot of problems with 64 bit, but really want to jump to 64 bit computing? Shame the Microsoft can't do what the Linux world can with 64 bit operating systems! Maybe we just need to have a dual + boot system... Win Xp32, Vista Ultimate 32, Vista Ultimate 64, GOOD OLD SPEEDY DOS (my personal favorite BTW - with QEMM and DesqView I multi-tasked with stability and a misbehaving program only crashed the misbehaving program). Joel

Deb at ATX Tech Support said the older programs would not run. I am glad to hear that is not true, as I would like to upgrade to at least Vista 32 bit, although I would prefer 64 bit to be able to access more than 4 gb of ram. Or should I say at least 4 gb ram as the graphics cards and other systems will cause Win 32 bit operating systems to be unable to access all the memory. Joel

Looking into replacing my computer to see if I can speed up ATX. I have found over the years that although a good program, it has always had speed issues compared to its competitors. Was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on compenents that would make a real difference. Note that I personally do not believe "state of the Art" when purchasing a new machine, but rather a mix of compromises on the various compents, to get the best bang for the buck. Here is what I am looking at: 1. CPU - AMD Athlon x2 6400, fastest of the AMD core 2 chips, as although Intel is currently faster, not sure it is worth the extra money or really adds anything to ATX. 2. Single PCI Express - Geoforce 8800 GTS graphics card with 320 mb of memory. 3. 1st HD - Western Digital Raptor 150 gb SATA 10,000 rpm hard disk with 16 mb Buffer 4. 2nd HD 500GB SATA -II 7200 RPM hard disk with 16 mb Buffer - "The Data Drive" for the most part. 5. two 1024 DDR2 mb 800hz / PC6400 memory cards (was thinking of going to 4 gb, but not sure it is worth the extra money) 6. Windows XP Professional 32bit, as ATX prior to 2005 won't run on VISTA Rest of the system is not a real issue in my mind as I don't think anything else really effects operating speed THx Joel

At the current pricing structure of ATX, it is still the bargain of all the tax programs out there. Further, although we had a tough season with them last year, I spoke with friends of mine using other software including ProSeries and they did not get the updates to their forms as quickly as us. One friend of mine was filing extensions late into the night near the end of season (I think even the last day) as ProSeries server was overloaded and he pays over $3000.00 for his software and that's without the research products he has to buy seperately. My cost $1540.50 with discount and that includes all of Kleinrock. I know ATX's software has some compromises; speed for me is a major issue, but they do appear to be more responsive to our needs. And they don't compete with us! In other words ProSeries vs Turbo Tax! Intuit doesn't care about us as professionals at all. Another of my good friends worked at Intuit as a tax consultant to insure the software worked and calculated the tax forms properly. When he found a major error in the calculations on some forms couple of years ago and made an issue of it, he was told to leave it alone as it would be addressed next season and when he didn't he was fired. With ATX on the other hand we have a few options, first every time I have brought an issue to them the programmers fixed the software in the current season and helped me work around the problem when I couldn't wait. Just because CCH now owns them isn't a reason to panic and jump ship. CCH needs a lower end program to compete with the other tax software products as Pro FX is way to expensive for the average user. I would guess ATX is giving some larger discounts to stop us from jumping ship because of the fear we have with CCH at the helm. Heck (sic), just their decision to get rid of the ATX community gave us cause for concern. Joel

Pretty much what I expected, but always helps to get a second opinion. Thx Joel

First I want to say thank you for bringing this community back, it was an invaluable source at the ATX site. Shame they had to discontinue it. FACTS: Anyway, have a client that has a schedule c law practice. A car drove through her office building (she owned it), and totally destroyed her storefront office. She filed insurance claims and repaired and replaced all the damage over a 2 year period (under the 2 year conversion statute). She received an insurance reimbursment, but it was only for 80% of the total cost of repairs. The majority of the assets (major ones anyway) had a zero (0) basis. Total damage was roughly 100k. QUESTIONS: 1. Do we have to report the casulty loss on her 1040 on the tax return to take advantage of the 2 year postponment of gain on the conversion, or make any elections to get the benefit of the postponment and basis carryover? 2. How do we write off the additional out of pocket cost to her of roughly 20K, which was for what would normally be Fixed assets as she replaced equipment and structural components of the building. I thought I would have to depreciate the additional cost using the standard MACRS lives for each class, but was wondering if there was a way to get a faster write - off due to the casulty. THX in advance for the help. Joel Gilbert CPA JD