Joel

I will have to say that I chose the title of this topic with tongue-in-cheek!

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Clients started new business in 2012 (flower shop). They rented space in a strip mall in which there was a fire late in the year. Flower shop a total loss along with all their business and investment records. Clients say they were not making money but were keeping their heads above water in anticipation of the coming holiday season. Without any records for documentation where do we start? Any suggestions?

A few years ago I had a client who was on disability, his wife was blind and they had an adult son who also was disabled. Until he reached his normal retirement age I was so happy to inform them that they would receive EIC.

Rich, The only problem is that when the IRS issued the tax id numbers they stated the end of the year was 12-31-12. Therefor the returns are due on 04-15-13!

Yesterday I ran into a situation with a Mother and two children. The Mother had a living trust when she passed away last April. In early May they got a tax id number for the trust. They sold mutual funds, annunities and stocks in the name of the trust during the Summer but used the Mother's social security number. Also cashed in the Mother's IRA in the name of the trust using mothers SS number. In August they went to cash in 40K of savings bonds (20K interest) and the bank said they needed an estate tax id number, so they got it. Now we need to straighten it out. My thinking is that the trust should never have received a tax id and that the estate was all that was needed. The IRA distribution should have gone to the children unless the trust was listed as the bene. Why didn't they call me about the tax consequences last May?

ATX released the 8582 as of 2:30 PM Monday.

I am getting an error message "invalid entry" on the billing invoice. At the beginning of the tax season billing was working porperly and I have not changed anything. But since the recent changes I get the error. Anyone else seeing this problem?

Yes, with the return open, go to tools, billing manager, for this return. ( I could have said read the user guide, but I didn't )

Yes, but that only adds the client letter to new returns not ones already rolled over.

I have always used word and mail merge since I started with ATX. Because I use all caps in the return I was not satisfied with the name and address in the ATX letter. I realize that I have a smaller number of clients and have to maintain a separate data base of addresses that I also use for my end of year mailings to current and former clients.

I have been struggling with the same problem. Screen says to change the default printer in the returns but when I click on the print icon in a return I get a different printer. Even following the video tutorial and reading the user manual, I still cannot understand how to change what will be printed. I have a return with 2 sch C and SE. The program selects the 2 Cs to print but not the 2 SEs. However the billing does bill for the SE so I guess I am ahead!!!

I was dealing with a nurse recently and she mentioned that the form she was filling out would make a copy onto the duplicate because it was carbon paper. (There was no carbon paper between the forms) I advised her that she was not using carbon paper but NCR paper. She did not know what I was talking about, so I explained to her what NCR means. Joel

Yes, the max shell loader error was eliminated by the recent update. However I have had the program abruptly stop (windows is looking for solution) and then shut down several times today. So it looks like a new problem.

Yes, but a schedule C for 2012 will not change much, if any, from 2011 other than the year. The linking to the 1040 will be the same. Also the problem with the shell loader has been documented since early in December but still has not been corrected. This is the inattention to getting things going for 2012 that I see. Tech support says that the shell loader should be corrected with the first update next year. How many other problems may crop up as a result of them postponing all the corrections until 2013? My approach would be to get as much up and running early and then add the changes caused by Congress at the end. Not everything at once in 2013!!!!

What is happening to ATX? We received the new program early this month with all the so called new features yet it still does not have half of its features operational. This week I received an e-mail from CCH telling us to install the program and learn all about its new features and operations yet we cannot run the program without having shell loaded shutting down the program and we do not have schedule C, D, 4552 etc available to practice with. I cannot edit the billing form & the price list because these changes will be deleted(according to tech support) when the updates come next year (hopefully next week). I have daily checked for updates but receive only a few forms. None of the critical ones needed to really work with the program and learn the new features. In prior years, (I have used ATX since 1997) by this time of year I have had everything ready for tax season, including the years that congress delayed updateing tax laws. I also have TRX software (also a new program) and they are way ahead of ATX in form releases and functionality.

Yes. I believe that is a know error and Doug said he is checking into it.

I spent over one hour with support this morning. I was told the following comments: the program is brand new and is buggy (apparently we are doing the debugging), we think that rollover causes the max.shell.loader problem, my problem with customizing forms may be related to video drivers or the fact that the forms are not yet approved, they are trying to solve the problems and will be issueing an update, probable not until after the first of the year, maybe the update will solve all the problems. Just received my TRX software (I subscribe to both). Maybe I will not have problems with it???

Part of the new 2012 ATX program

I had a followup call to support yesterday because I received a confusing message on my answereing machine stating that if we wanted to customize a form we would need to submit a request to CCH. The tech that I reached yesterday was very helpful and after many trials and changes within the program and my computer, he concluded that the program, while appearing to function normally, had an error in installation. After uninstalling the program and several hidden files, I was able to reinstall the program. The functionality of the billing customization is now working and all seems to be normal. He did state that changes to the formulas within the program cannot be changed by us.

I have been exploring the 2012 ATX program in order to familarize myself with the changes. Since I charge by the form I decided to customize the billing form to preset the check marks on the form that I want on all of my return billings. After getting nowhere in the program I called to ATX support. An excellent tech unsuccessfully walked through the program with me and she finally concluded that this feature will be implemented in a big update dure to be released soon. Rather than keep me on hold she said she would research the release date and report back to me via e-mail. This is her reply: Good Afternoon. I did more research on the customizing issue. ATX has changes their rules on customizing master forms, due to many tax agency requests, ATX 2012 does not allow users to unprotect forms and edit them in any way. I will submit a report to our developers and request the customizing of the billing invoice, once I receive an response I will get back to you. If you do have to call back before I get back to you, please refer to incident number 2077311. Thank you and have a great day. While I do not customized other forms in past years, I find this to be a most critical customizing as it effects all returns and would be time consuming to hand enter the check marks on each invoice. Just a heads up and to keep this a issue.

Knowledge is knowing the right book to look up the answer in!

For office 2010 check out academicsoftwaredeals.com

May the grace of the lord be with you and your family.

I sent an evaluation of the new software to TRX and received two return calls earlier this week. My concern was that the k-1s from partnerships and s-corps was limited to 15. As a result of my evaluation I was advised that I had downloaded an early version of the software and that the current version allowed up to 100. I was told that I would be receiving via US mail a disk with the most recent version. I have not yet received the new version but you might want to check with TRX as to your version.