Catherine

I have found that posting a question to the forum is the *best* way to make the information you have been searching and hour for to jump out from wherever it has been hiding. As soon as you hit "submit" it jumps out, calling "surprise! here I was, all along - fooled you good tee hee!"

Oooh! They are *excellent*!

I dunno - some of them sound good, though. Try a couple - if you don't like the first one or two, there are other options. Not like it's going to cost you a lot of money to try.

Bingo.

Flip a coin for the address to use? Get the court to choose? This one is a nasty problem, you have my sympathies.

I would MUCH rather see vigorous prosecution of tax fraud than more "regulations" for those of us who are *trying* to do our best. We've all seen it here - comments in various posts about the guy down the street or the other preparer in little town X who makes up EIC-increasing data - usually with a comment "but we know nothing's going to happen." WHY THE BLEEP NOT?!?! THAT is where the problem is! Get those creeps out of our industry, and thereby lessen the fraud plus help taxpayers from getting cheated by shysters. IMHO they are ham-handedly pursuing the *wrong* aspect of the problem. And I'll put my toe on the "politics" line by saying that's typical of government (any government). Bureaucratic solution = ham-handed, anywhere, anywhen, anyone, anyhow.

I have a bunch of ways to take cards. Drake e-pay from right inside the software. Fast payment to me, per-use fee only - nothing monthly. PayPal from my web site (works great for out-of-state and foreign clients). Also just a per-transaction fee. QB like Lion has; per-use fee only. For acctg clients or people with non-current-year tax returns (or several years at once) or non-e-filable returns, where doing it through Drake wouldn't work. Drake's e-pay gets me $$ the fastest. Paypal is next but it stays as a balance in that account until I transfer it (I leave some, and pay for CPE meetings from that account as my local society prefers that method). QB takes longest to get me cash. Not having a smart phone, all the little swipey readers are useless for me.

Scientists have determined there are only two thoughts in the minds of cats. 1. "All this is MINE." 2. "When does the staff serve luncheon today?"

And frankly if one is NOT ethical, it's really easy to snooze through a class and get nothing - or give (untrue-for-you) correct answers on a test. The *only* ethics that has been useful for me is the UMass Tax School ethics. The guy leading it is great and gets a group discussion going around grey areas and how clients can gradually sucker a preparer into those grey areas - usually NOT with bad intentions. Not sure I learned anything, really - but at least it was interesting! I *detest* those "ethics" presentations that start out assuming everyone there commits (or wants to commit) extensive tax fraud daily.

Only as something to joke about! And I also like the name "Borg" for the new cat. Plus, his resistance to behaving will also eventually prove futile - won't it?

Well, yes - except you can *charge* for the time to get the transcript, and then you know what else the bozo is missing. It can be a good way to decide whether to keep a client, how much to up-charge him (keeper or not), and on top of that head off next year's CP2000 letter at the pass.

I was gonna add a snarky comment about the new rule being "deplorable" but now am afraid it will get banned and the moderators will spank me... but it was *just* going to be for snark value, I promise!

Thank you! I was up teaching at Camp Constitution last week and we had our own fireworks and special presentations for the day. Great time!

Change "had to" to "were supposed to" and you have it. But they didn't, they screwed up, and because it was their screw-up, they will be even more recalcitrant than usual about fixing it.

And GOOD LUCK to you, Naveen! How unutterably nasty for you - and how unforgivably STUPID for the IRS to lien the wrong property.

If not, call the Taxpayer Advocate and have them place a 911 emergency help on your account.

So true. Somehow the errors just pop out in final form. Weird. So it's NOT just me, then? That's a relief!

And an AI also came up with these names for Guinea Pigs (for a shelter that rescues lots of piggies and so needs a lot of names): Splanky, Gooper, Spockers, Fufby, Snifkin, Hanger Dan, Princess Pow, Popchop, Fuzzable, Fleury White, Stargoon, Buzzberry, and After Pie. Plus more (and some hilarious blooper names, too). Gizmodo had the article, for those who want to read it and see piggie pictures.

Robot callers are not allowed to pretend to be human; if asked, they are allowed to laugh, or to ask if they *sound* like a robot - but not to say "no." Prevarication, not fraud. So if they won't say.... they've said.

Gremlins. That's what is going on.

OK, boys, remember to take your blood pressure meds...

So update your computers NOW if you have not done that in a while. Just double-checked my machine (all OK) and will check the home machine once I get back there.

I am shocked, *shocked*, to find gambling on the premises. Oh, wait, my winnings... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2017/06/26/irs-private-debt-collectors-accused-of-pressuring-taxpayers-breaking-the-law/#428eb5252aeb For those who don't like to click links, here is the first paragraph-and-a-bit from Forbes: A new law which went into effect this year directs the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to hand over some unpaid tax bills to private agencies for collections. The law was pushed through despite the failures of past privatization efforts and despite concerns about what privatization efforts might mean for taxpayers (including those recently expressed by Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George and National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson). It appears those concerns were not unfounded.

If it were my client, I would send the "missing" forms, the e-file-forms-sent listing from the computer with the "missing" forms highlighted, the e-file submission ID/ack, and would also make sure that if there was a 1040 requested, that the client SIGN it. I had a request for a 1040 for someone *just* as backup - forget the details - and the idiots rejected the backup info because it wasn't signed. Took another letter to dope-slap them into admitting the signature wasn't actually needed. I'm seeing more inexcusably incompetent foul-ups with the IRS and have actively been trying to give them no excuse not to do things MY way (because that's the right way, of course - no pride here, nope, uh-uh, no sirree... lol).

I have found the same thing time and time again. But I'm not sure it's fear that keeps them from filing. I've seen it take a couple of years to recover from the catastrophe, at which point they are so far behind they don't know where to start, and it's too overwhelming - so they never start, and the problem escalates. Case in point, an older man who had a heart attack or stroke (I don't remember, if I ever even knew; serious health issue). In the hospital for a long time, in rehab even longer, and a couple of years before he got his strength and energy back. Took one look at the stack somewhere before he was really well, and ignored it as too much to handle after that. His kids found out years later and they brought everything to me (with dad's permission). But it wasn't fear; it was just Sisyphus, facing another morning with that rock, and turning away.