Catherine

I have used the label printer to print labels rather than envelopes. While my printer does print envelopes, they don't always feed cleanly, so I prefer not to do that. In general, on the (very rare!) occasion someone at Drake does not know how to help, I make an excuse to hang up, and try again. Someone else will answer, and will be able to help. When I have had to have a problem escalated, they promise a call back within 24 hours but have rarely gone more than 12 hours. And they apologize for taking that long.

I still have a scented candle that I bought with S&H Green Stamps in the mid-1990's. Yes, they were still around (limited, but around) then! At least, they were still around in Worcester MA...

How about shoe size and date of last pedicure? Sheesh. And what about those of us who are not certain of their own blood type?!

Oooh! Now we get into multi-variant analysis! Shades of advanced calculus (MIT's much-dreaded "18.075" course of song and legend). Took that monster in 1979; passed with a "D" (a passing grade at MIT) and I have never worked harder to pass a class in my entire life than that one. Even my husband (a genius) took it all by itself as a summer course; I took it along with four other classes while working on weekends. Ugh. I lived - barely! About all I remember at this point is the "Method of Frobenius" - not how to DO it, just the name! Oh; and the heat conduction partial differential. For some utterly bizarre reason, anything to do with thermodynamics always made perfect sense to me. Not so much in other areas. I still think Edsel can get his answer using the brute-force and inelegant iterative method.

It's what calculus was designed to circumvent; elegant equations rather than recurring clunky equations until the solution converges. Anyone who went to engineering school knows the term. Now all we need is a differential equation solution to the SEHI with premium tax credits! Know anyone with an advanced degree in math? @RitaB perhaps?

Very true. However, if Massachusetts' DOR came in and found me storing client data on unencrypted folders, or sending unprotected-by-passwords emails of client documents, they would have my head on a platter. So my drives are encrypted and I use password protection and NO wireless networking (everything is physical connections) and I cross my i's and dot my t's and just to be sure I cross my i's and dot my t's. NOT because it's "safer" but because the state, in its infinite lack of wisdom, has required procedures that make no sense and I do not want to become the poster child for non-compliance. They can go find some obliviot who keeps everything on a laptop with the password "password" for that!

@Edsel - you could still use the calculator link. Pick the simplest employee, poke in numbers until you get a match, and then you'll know if that exemption is in addition to, or not. Then add in married, see if the calculator changes things. A bit iterative and inelegant but it should work, and you should get an answer in 15 minutes. Better than searching for definitions for an hour and then having to do samples to make sure they're right.

Adobe Acrobat can be purchased very inexpensively if you go to ebay and buy a new, registerable, version that is a couple of revisions out of date. I did that some years ago and still use that program on two machines. I have Nuance Power PDF for the third machine. They all do password protection and encryption.

There will still be plenty of people who are too busy or who detest the job enough that they want it done for them. However, if there are fewer clients with Sch A, I can give them a lower price and spend more time teasing out the stock options and bitcoin type transactions.

Accepting returns as of 1/29 but no processing for another couple of weeks. Sure; we'll go with that (like we have a choice). That's actually the date I expected (though on an online poll I picked a slightly earlier one for some bizarre reason).

I got all my client W-2's printed out today but have not answered the phone or really any client emails today. The snow has been blowing sideways all day (I took a video on my camera and need to figure how to put that on facebook), there are drifts, and the winds are really howling! Still have power, hooray. The local emergency mgmt folks did reverse-911 calls last night telling folks to set their house thermostats to 72F (I guess to keep them warm a bit longer if power does go out). It feels decadently warm in much of the house - but not the office, on the north side above the garage. I made a white pizza for dinner and as soon as it cools off enough to cut, we'll see how well it turned out!

I buy The Tax Book's online product. No shelf space needed, and the online research goes back to 2009 so I don't even need to keep the old books. I find it easier to search for IRC on their system than the IRS's; I can never find what I want using their search engine.

All I can say right now is that I am VERY glad I don't have to program these changes - OR design the forms and schedules. For the rest, I can wait.

I have all my (and my client) W-2's done as pdf's. Tonight I hope to pull out the blank forms and print them tomorrow morning. Then I'll start to fuss at business clients to get me 1099 information.

Magic 8-Ball says "Answer Hazy; Ask Again Later!"

We have friends who always have a New Years Day brunch, and we spent some time there. I spent the afternoon catching up on household accounting, including searching ALL over for my folder on the credit freeze stuff. Needed to lift the freeze for a few days so we can switch mobile phone providers - and the folder was NOT where I put it. Except it was; it was just hiding in front of another folder the same color. It only took me four searches of my entire office (at home) to find the bleeping thing! I was not amused - but glad to finally find it. My engagement letters went out on Saturday. Thank heavens! I start getting client calls asking for them the end of the first week of January, and sometimes get so busy with those (and 1099's and W-2's) that it gets hard to get the letters out! We had a three hour envelope-stuffing party middle of last week; I forget if it was Wednesday or Thursday. We got a higher temp here today than predicted: we got to 13F when they'd said 9F was going to be the high. When I teach on Saturday, the high is supposed to be 2F, with a low that night of -13F! We have not seen a prolonged stretch of cold like this in a *very* long time. Joe Bastardi over at WeatherBell Analytics has models showing the cold will last through mid-January at least. Brrr! Looks like the solar physicists are right and that ole sun of ours is going into hibernation for the next 20-30 years. Add in the increased volcanic activity that tracks reduced solar activity, and that doubles the effect. 80% of our volcanoes are under (ocean) water. So the ones above ground add ash to the troposphere, blocking the solar irradiance, and the ones underwater heat the oceans, which then evaporate more. When that moister ocean air hits the colder air over the land ---> snow. Lots and lots of snow. Whee! Not.

I bet we could all sit down today and make a list of the folks who will call on April 12th, asking for an extension (again) after promising in February that *this* year they'd be on time! Plus the ones who will pay late, the ones who will forget form-whatever, et cetera.

Thanks, Judy! I bought a small self-study package for EA's for small money. I have another online source that provides good info but I am underwhelmed with the presentations (monotone voices).

The funniest accent misadventure I ever saw was MANY moons ago. I was working (college era) in a small restaurant owned and mostly staffed by folks from Greece. Popular with truck drivers. We had a guy come in, truck driver from down south, and order haddock. 'Cept the way he said it, it came out not quite right. Imagine the "a" in "hat" and now say HA-dock. Well, the young Greek-speaking man taking the order heard the driver say ("y" as consonant here, not vowel) HYA-dog. (Only two syllables, not hi-yah-dog.) That's the way he pronounced "hot dog." Driver was NOT happy when his haddock came out as hot dogs. I had to go over and translate English to English for them and get it fixed. Fish, not franks!

I used Gleim as well (paper books as well as CD interactive practice tests). Once I started catching the "error" questions (the ones from actual IRS exams, with multiple correct answers or where correct answers could not be positively determined from the information given), I figured I was gonna do OK. The big thing I learned was NOT to second-guess myself. Every question I went back to and agonized over, and changed my answer - was wrong. Not all the ones I did not re-think were right - but a lot more of them WERE right, and it was far less stressful! Back when I took it, it was four parts, all at once over two days. Passed all four first try, and I give all the credit to Gleim for the great preparation.

Driving west to the dentist this afternoon, I saw sundogs with rainbows! Go google for images yourselves, since most folks here don't want to click on links. It was stunning.

Eventually! (I know - a mathematician's answer - factually correct and utterly useless!)

We had a guy when I was in college from deepest darkest Nebraska. I could not understand one single word he said. Ever. Only other accent that has totally stumped me was Cornish.

I lost all faith in ADP the year I had one of their employees as a client. They switched their own software installation mid-year and he got TWO W-2's; they could not figure how to combine the information onto only one... And they do this for other companies?!

Very cute - but the actual answer is that after a time of being "On" (attentive, personable, interactive) an introvert needs time alone and quiet to recover - quite possibly including a nap. It can be as exhausting as suddenly doubling or tripling your usual level of physical activity.