Catherine

I have a fondness for hardware, too -- but I like the ones that go "BANG!". I keep hoping for a cannon for the front yard....

I think you are correct and the W-2 is wrong. Pre-tax payments lower taxable wages but not socsec wages or medi wages.

Joan feel better!! I am *not* looking forward to the root canal I will be having tomorrow afternoon -- but I would rather that than have my back go out! (Plus it's a front tooth so only one root.)

I had an older couple as clients for years. First time they came to me (in response to an IRS letter; as I recall, the IRS turned out to be wrong...) he had calculated their estimated tax payments (by hand) to within $16 of their actual final tax bill. They are both gone now but I remember them fondly.

All my elderly clients provide me with detailed lists of medical and charitable payments, neatly listed and totaled by hand without calculators. There is never a mistake.

Nah; those were the folks a couple of days ago looking for cheap fast last minute returns for FAFSA filings.

Dear Client, When you sell stock that is spun-off from or merged with another stock you own that was itself acquired from a spin-off, I can NOT figure out basis for you without ( a ) the date you bought the original, ( b ) the number of shares you originally bought, and ( c ) if you have sold any in the interim. If you can only narrow the purchase date down to a 6-month range because you are missing statements, I will use the *lowest* historical price during that time frame. I will charge you through the nose for this work. Instead, why don't you either track and provide your own bleeping stock basis (c'mon; you both have advanced degrees in sciences, I KNOW you can figure this out), or at LEAST do the online research on the spinoffs and mergers and give me the best source data you can? Or I can just use zero as the basis....

I would still call the police. Some of these scum have called in fake "murder in progress" calls to terrorize people for NOT paying. Calling the cops at least makes it far LESS likely that they send the SWAT team out to your house because of the "hostage situation in progress."

What IS it today with people with Indian subcontinent accents calling and looking for walk-in tax prep for FAFSA forms done immediately? Only today!?!?

Do you have caller ID? She could answer any unknown callers by saying, "Gould's Morgue; you stab 'em we slab 'em!" Or she could just think of doing that.. sometimes it's almost as much fun without the possibility of saying that to an IRS agent.

Only thing I can think of is HRB did not include any of her earnings; just added an extra exemption to the return.

and this one

While it is never any of the folks who use that phrase, I have a number of people who come awfully darned close to the same amount to charity year after year. With receipts to back them up.

Shared by a friend: A little boy was doing his math homework. He said to himself, 'Two plus five, that son of a bitch is seven. Three plus six, that son of a bitch is nine....' His mother heard what he was saying and gasped, 'What are you doing?' The little boy answered, 'I'm doing my math homework, Mum.' 'And this is how your teacher taught you to do it?' the mother asked 'Yes,' he answered. Infuriated, the mother asked the teacher the next day, 'What are you teaching my son in math?' The teacher replied, 'Right now, we are learning addition.' The mother asked, 'And are you teaching them to say two plus two, that son of a bitch is four?' After the teacher stopped laughing, she answered, 'What I taught them was, two plus two, THE SUM OF WHICH, is four.'

Janitor Bob, your assumptions are correct. Only amounts exceeding the distributions are eligible for those various deductions and credits. I always report on a Line 21 worksheet and then back it off on a second. As Rita B said (I think it was her) in another thread, even though the worksheets don't transmit it gives *you* a memory trail of what you decided and why. Plus you can always print the worksheet for the client. We all have clients that want to know "where did you put this?" and you can point to the worksheet as proof that you didn't forget something crucial.

I annotate *everything* because no matter how crystal clear it is now, it will be dense mud next year. Heck, it will be dense mud next *month* for that matter.

We toasted "pi time" with tea this morning, and plan to have pie for dessert tonight. We also are getting a kick out of MIT's using that minute to release notice of new student acceptances. I really like the idea of conflating pi day and 8283 guesstimates.

There are some anti-virus programs that keep a running tally of everything they do and they bog down machines quickly. Kaspersky is a known miscreant in this regard. AVG to a lesser extent.

Oh good -- I do RI NR returns all the time but don't use ATX anymore. If you run into RI snags, send me a message.

Thank you jmdavidcpa! I have been looking for a startup tweaking program. I detest things running in the background; I am willing to wait the extra seconds when I want a program, as long as it doesn't choke my machine running in stealth mode.

There is a LOT of chemical energy in batteries. Discharging that energy all at once is *not* an easily controlled activity. This has been a public service announcement. Better living through chemistry!

I have a few clients who regularly donate goods. I get the donation slip with value, and appended to that LONG list of what they donated and what they valued the stuff for. While the items themselves are not valued incorrectly (that I can tell from a quick perusal), the totals get impressive. $700, $1200, like that. I won't even take slips with no value from the client.

I work year 'round. Hired help (2x/week) in Sept and am grooming him to take over in 7-10 years. I am just *tired* of working 60 hours/week with one week off every summer. Bookkeeping, payroll (full for one client, tax forms for two others, one nanny payroll, now my own too), taxes, a tiny bit of representation work here and there. Yes, Lion is right - used to be slow after 10/15 (and in August, too) but not for the last half-dozen years.

Dear Client, I understand that your mom and other friends/family members are very eager to get the partnership K-1's from the unholy mess you call "spreadsheets" from your LLC, that you only gave me last Friday. Emailing me six times in eight hours will NOT get them done any faster, especially when NONE of those responses answered the questions I asked. NO, you should NOT prepare K-1's from TurboTax for them. Unless you want to do this return yourself - and right about now, I'm thinking maybe you SHOULD. Don't push me any more today, or you WILL be doing them yourself.

Talk about tough love. One client came in with a 1099-R for over $130K - of which he saw not a penny. Inherited his sister's IRA (TOD; never went through estate), executor told him she needed that money to pay final medical expenses. Somehow weaseled it for money to be sent to HER, not him. He's in shock and nearly in tears. *Wants* to help his sister's final expenses; has known the executor (a lawyer!) since she was in diapers. Had to tell him that knowing someone since they were in diapers and wanting to help is NOT the same thing as hanging a sign on his back saying "Kick me in the nuts!" Told him I would NOT touch any tax papers until he had spoken with an attorney about the situation (which has every warning bell in my head clanging away). Yes, I had to be that harsh. It felt like kicking a puppy. Sheesh.