mcbreck

I have 1-2 boxes per year and I just take them to my wife's employer (a major university) when they have their yearly shredding event. My bank also has events for free and Office Depot has a shredding service for pay. About 2 years ago I had a company come out and we cleaned out 12 filing cabinets with old useless files. I have about 30 huge binders / ledgers from the 1940's that are freakishly heavy duty (and 7" thick) and need to be destroyed but my co-worker is against it for now. If i did it, I doubt he'd even notice. He can't even physically lift them.

Thanks for that.

I'd tend to agree with you. I'm reluctant to make large tax payments today to benefit from lower taxes when I'm 80 years old and may have medical expenses to wipe out the tax bill. JMO. I also think if you have something like $200k saved for retirement, you are better off spending all $200k and delaying SS as long as beneficial to lock in the highest payment possible. Most people look at it in the exact opposite way.

Congrats - I used Gleim back in the pencil days. I joined the NAEA and cancelled after 3 years as my state chapter was completely incompetent. Mailings were sent out AFTER events happened which made be think it was probably on purpose it happened so consistently.

50% of Americans retire with about $250k in retirement assets or less. They would be better off with a traditional IRA because most likely their IRA distributions (if timed properly) would achieve $0 in taxes or very little. My in-laws retired with those type of funds and never paid a dollar in income taxes after retiring at 62. He could have easily had more like $350,000 because he ran out of retirement funds at 82 years of age. Did the taxes for a lady about 2008 and she did a Traditional to Roth conversion and paid taxes on her distribution (while she was still working). When I told her this she yelled at me - not her CFP who suggested it. Blanket statements rarely work, you need to look at the situation and run the numbers. I have another client who doesn't have an IRA but his money is invested in dividend paying stocks (all qualified) and some muni bonds. He also pays $0 in federal tax (he does owe at the state level). He has a very comfortable retirement. Investing in a Roth IRA could have benefited him (avoid potential capital gains realizations) but he never sells so it doesn't matter.

Like in your paragraph two - I'd enter the 1099-G, back out whatever needed to go on a different form and put notes in the return. I put the notes as much as possible right in the lines where I enter them manually so it shows up on our "Statements". When I started doing taxes I'd skip some forms and enter directly - almost every time we'd get a tax amount due letter as the IRS would just add the income because we failed to report the form. This happened to me when a company I work with sent me a 1099 in April and I'd already filed my own return. I had included the income so I just did an amended, added the 1099 and reduced my sales by the same amount and the IRS was fine with it. Now, I always wait for their 1099 even though I don't think they are required to send me one.

This is the exact answer.

You could use Linux. Much like with MAC OS, you have to run extra software to run Windows programs in sort of an emulation mode. I've considered learning Linux but I don't have that big of a problem with Windows and there are tons of Linux variations - who has the time? If you are worried about Windows 11 not being compatible enough with your tax software, you probably don't want to run Linux or any of the other open source programs. It's not covered in the media very often but MAC OS has a ton of security problems and it also has virus problems. Hackers generally go to the largest platforms available because it gets you the biggest bang for the buck but MAC is big enough that it has these problems.

If Congress doesn't pass the BBB which would (most likely) extend the Child Tax Credit as it currently exists - would the Child Tax Credit no longer exist at all or does it revert back to the previous system as a credit on your tax return instead of a larger prepayment?

From what I read this morning, I was wrong. MS is doing away with the "default browser" selection and it will always be Edge going forward unless people freak out enough / the government warns them of anti-trust violations.

Just checked a pdf with a link - opened in my default browser. Now I have an insatiable desire to do all my internet searches via my start menu.

I could be wrong but I think the MS search issue is only if you search the internet via your start menu. I don't know that I've ever used that to search the internet.

Sometimes, sites have a problem with Firefox when you have certain ad ons like an ad blocker or pop-up blocker. I think my biggest with any browser is the pop-up blocker. Sites will have a "click on this" acceptance box and the browser will block it and thus the entire website. I log into a University library and oddly, only Internet Explorer works. Literally nothing will open unless you open with IE and EDGE must be using IE Mode. The biggest oddity I've seen with Windows 11 is that you tell Edge to use IE Mode on a website (you have to physically add it to a list) and then every time you visit the site it gives you a warning that you are using ID Mode. Duh? I find that stuff just frustratingly dumb.

I used the Mozilla Suite (I came to it through using Netscape). When they brought out Firefox I downloaded it and have been using it since it debuted. I've used it with EFTPS every month since then without a problem. I have my EFTPS form telling me I signed up in 2002. I use one called The SeaMonkey Project for some things - wouldn't recommend it but it's really a spinoff open source Firefox. I use Edge for some work sites I'm required to have a citrix certificate to access.

How many emergency updates do you have to go through before you think maybe the product itself is the problem?

If you want to do real editing of the pdf data, you probably want their Editor software. What you can do is white out a section ( remove what is there) and then type over it. You can paste information from another source to add pages or information. If I want a real editor, I use a website to do that or generate raw from a Word type document. 99% of the time on a PDF all I want to do is type something in to add information / delete information or just highlight words for clients attention - signature lines. I can do that with their Reader version.

Foxit is downloadable. Occasionally (every month maybe) you'll get asked to upgrade to a different version, say no. I very much dislike Chrome so I don't use it or any of their extensions.

I use the free Foxit Reader and love it. You can edit / add text to any pdf for free. You can highlight areas to note where a client should sign.

I could be wrong but I think Windows XP was their most dramatic technical upgrade but Windows 8 caused the most perceived problems? I've never had a significant problem with any of the upgrades so I don't understand the fear people have. People always freaked out about Windows 8 but 8.1 was perfectly fine. I remember being in a conference call with a vendor and them yelling not to upgrade to 8.0 but we already had and their announcement that printers and software wouldn't work was completely false. People still hold onto that fear of 8.0 and note it on every upgrade. When I got out of college I was in a meeting and they were talking about upgrading to Windows software. Management was so completely shocked to learn that the PCs they'd been buying actually had 3.0 installed - they were just running MS-Dos because that's what their software vendors required. Windows 95 might have been the biggest leap because computers stopped using the DOS interface as the default.

Things like the Start button are a little different (pinned software has a different look) but I stopped thinking about it after a week.

If you are computer literate, it's available via torrents. If you are okay borrowing someone's disk to install, it's the same thing.

Had a client who had a lot of the same concerns about EFTPS. The more I tried to explain it to him, the more sure it was a government plot. I pay / file with coupons and physical forms on a lot of stuff but EFTPS just makes sense.

When you gift it like that, you also have (a lot of times) the non legally binding promise that it will never leave the family. If someone gets sick, you can then rent out the property but still keep it in the family. My nieces husband was gifted 50 acres from his grandfather because he wanted the grandson to work it and make a living off of it while he raised his family.

I'd question whether the reason for the paper file is because they are using non-professional / free tax software. There is a guy who produces a free excel spreadsheet tax return. I'd wonder if they aren't using something like that or Turbo Tax for individuals.

If this was the case, wouldn't the tax software automatically make such an adjustment? You don't get a benefit if you make all your distribution in the first quarter.