joanmcq

They 'automatically' signed me up for automatic renewals. I got the email that they were renewing me the day they did it (and I hadnt checked my email that day). I was planning on switching to McAfee because Norton slowed down my system too much last year. When I went in to check, I disarmed the auto renewal on my account. But I didn't put it there. Oh well, will change next year.

My HP 3330 just gave up the ghost (all in one and the scanner bed died; still works as a printer) and I just got a LaserJet M2727. Much faster and it has a much higher per month rating, which is why the 3300 died; I guess it wasn't meant for what I put it through during the season!

"If this does / is in effect you may want to check if the consent will be required for any taxpayer you are efiling with ATX or Taxwise in 2009, since starting this year, the company will retain all of the client's information that is being efiled and it will be accessible by anybody working in the Georgia customer service/tech support division. In prior years ATX was always very careful about protecting clients information and all senisitive information i.e. SSN, account numbers etc... were data stripped and not accessible by customer service/ tech support. All information efiled starting Jan. 11 will be viewable by any of their customer service staff." This is not good news. What purpose does this serve? Why should customer service/tech support have access to any of my client's info, especially if I am not, for example, sending a problem return to tech support?

And that's just the state. Wait til the IRS gets ahold of them.

I find it interesting that for the last 8 months any ATX employee had to come here 'undercover' and now you're all here and have 'outed' yourselves. What's with the turnaround, besides anyone that is now an 'ex' employee?

Actually this is really that all the income goes into the joint account and one used to pay all the bills (write the checks out of the joint account) until computerized bill pay came along, and now the other one does it because its more like surfing the internet than paying bills. I've actually advised unmarried couples that if they want to technically be right, the one that wants to deduct (higher income) should pay mortgage, and the other one pay the auto payments and utilities or whatever. But these folks really just pool everything. the incomes were more disparate a few years ago (I'm working on 2004-2007) but are about equal now. they have a second account for the soon to be rental, and all bills for that home renovation are coming out of there.

New clients filing back taxes. Both are on mortgage, both are on deed. Only account is a joint bank account. Previously, they prepared their own taxes and one took all the interest and taxes and the other claimed the standard deduction. With the two only having one joint account, I think the best I can do is split the deductions by percentages of income. What say y'all? Currently, the returns are pretty simple, but in 2007 they bought a new house and the old one will be rented in 2008, so I will have the same issues on the rental property.

Ok, went to take the nap and inadvertently mildly poisoned myself (peroxide for the cat's ear was next to my water bottle). after calling poison center, got nap. went up to start the returns. Multi-purpose printer/scanner/copier/fax scanning bed gave up the ghost; got scanner error after every copy and had to turn off for at least 20 minutes to try to get it to reset so I could make one more copy. 2 hours later I stopped the return and looked up how much it cost to repair 3 years ago, and researched new machines. New one is definitely cost beneficial, and I'll get one that handles my volume of printing/copying etc. Got appt w/vet for cat, brought client docs to job to use copier here, but forgot PDA with client's phone number in it, so I can't call and let them know it will take a bit longer to process returns due to computer hell. And work is unveiling a new timecard software which is much more complicated and user unfriendly than the old. Can I just have a mental breakdown and be hospitalized for the rest of the season?

I'm not talking about no NET income; I'm talking about zero GROSS income and thousands upon thousands of expenses. Usually for 'home-based businesses', ie multi-level marketing schemes. Self prepared returns can be a real piece of work.

See's California Crunch made up for some of it. Yum. Well, went to Fry's and got a new cable and it worked. Best $8 I've ever spent! But got shut out of e-services, got my car ransomed from the shop for only $810 (at least I can write off some of it with the Dec. 31 date), my upstairs toilet won't flush, I have 6 back year's tax returns to do and I want to take a nap. Also one of my cats got into a fight and his ear is infected and my glasses broke yesterday morning. Wah! I think the nap will win. And I have more chocolate!

jainen, somehow I don't think you file a zero income schedule C!

Yesterday I finally finished up my bookkeeping for my biz (except for what I got today), and started to put numbers into my tax return. Hey so far, so good! So I go to hotsync my Palm to update my expense data to get it ready to export to a spreadsheet. Darn thing wont hotsync. Overcooked the turkey while trying to figure it out...lost track of time. Then new clients in for lots of back returns, and I'm trying to copy some of their docs so I won't have to keep them. Copier/printer starts cycling and making a really nasty grinding noise. So its been doing this on and off for awhile...turn it off/on/off/on won't stop. So I give up. Great impression for new clients. She asks to use the bathroom...toilet won't flush..ok that isn't a computer issue...then back to the Palm problem. Computer whiz roommate tries to troubleshoot, can't figure it out. Do online chat tech support, no good. Call tech support TWICE, no good. Maybe the cables bad. But the car is in the shop, so I can't go find a new cable. Decide to try to reload software. CD drive won't open. restart computer. Maxtor external hard drive still crashes the computer, but at least its backing things up. Need to uninstall/reinstall the software. Think I'm going to go get into the chocolate instead. Happy New Years!

At the firm I work for (we represent mostly TurboTax users under audit) I'm seeing lots of EBE and charitable audits. And usually, even if the EBE are really what triggered the audit, they'll throw in a request for charitable and medical backup as well, just for the heck of it, even if those amounts don't seem out of line. These audits are not fun...sometimes the people really didn't know the law, some of them are really stupid as to tax law, and some are just cheats. When I started there doing TT reviews, I was convinced that all of the country's debt woes would be solved if just all of the EBE and no-income Schedule C returns were audited. From what I'm seeing the last year, maybe the IRS figured this out too!

We are glad to see you here!

Its one of the reasons I buy Max. and before that, I got the W-2/1099 package along with the 1040 Office. Just to efile the darn 1099s! As for health care, why not just outsource it to Canada...oh yeah, we already have a federally run system. Its called Medicare.

Somehow, I can't believe the support staff in GA (which I bet will know Taxwise very well...actually does anyone know where they are based? Are the Taxwise people going thru the same crap?) will know anything about ATX. This may be my last year with them as well...and William was worth his weight in gold. I rarely used tech support..mostly because I had William to answer my questions on the board when I had them. Since the training classes were crap, and there's not much support that I can find with the program, I'm glad all of you are here. I have a feeling we will have to be tech support for each other.

ATX lets you choose what form to use. Just use the 1040.

Yeah. And when you think of it, the upper barely inhabited part of Maine has got to be a low cost place to do business...except maybe for snow removal.

Slappy, why would we assume the LLC has elected S-corp status? Don't we all know not to hold real estate in a corp, including a state entity that has no federal standing electing to be treated as a corp?

Happy Happy to everyone on this site!

I saw your name when I signed in and was delighted to see one of your totally off-topic observations. Welcome back!

Twas, Bush and his congresses that passed all these short-term tax cuts and credits. We all knew the sunset provisions were a scam. Then the expirations are called a 'tax increase' and god knows, no-one wants a tax increase! We had the same thing here in CA with the VLF fee increase; when the fees were decreased, the state promised the counties (that actually got the VLF monies) that they would replace the lost fees, but if the state budget ever got to the point where they couldn't reimburse the counties, the VLF would AUTOMATICALLY increase to its former level. When that happened, the powers that didn't be screamed TAX INCREASE! Now, not that I liked Gray Davis, but the spin on that was the same spin on the Bush tax cuts, the AMT patches, etc. And I'm frustrated by the masses believing the spin. And I'm sick of it, even if it keeps me employed

Aw, gimme a break. This whole thing has been a fiasco, and its the prez's 'tax cuts' that caused the AMT to affect the lower income people in the first place (sure I'll cut your taxes, but won't tell you the reduced bracket will put you into AMT, so its really not a tax cut), as well as the sunset provisions to make the decreased revenue streams palatable.

I love the fact that this board has so much information that is not necessarily tax related!

I never knew there was such a feature! I would love to know how to do that. Then I wouldn't have to adjust for a Sch D prepared only because of capital gains div, or some other flow through feature.