Catherine

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.

Once you get used to it, it is really fast. I can click through an entire return faster than ATX was changing pages.

I understand why YOU are not comfortable with it; I wouldn't be either. Your insurance folks might be a good place to start.

Dear Client -- Thank you so much for sending along the W-2 from YOUR job that I asked about and was told there wasn't because you got laid off. That was indeed why your wages line looked so low; it just had your wife's income! Thank you especially for now having to re-do and re-print your return AND spend money for Priority Mail to send it to you -- and your wife paid me when she picked the returns up last night so I can't even add on a re-print and mailing fee. At least I didn't have to deal with ACA nonsense since when (just) your health insurance got cancelled you could still go to the VA - so that counts as full-year coverage.

ROTFLMAO

It's going to be close to 50F here on Wednesday and I am already planning to close up for a bit and take a walk mid-day.

I have not used ATX for a couple of years now - so things may have changed. However, I learned the hard way not even to *open* a return until I got some e-file ack (other than "pending") from ATX - or my e-files ended up rejected. Call tech support (back when they still answered their phones, so 2009/2010 tax year or something) and they told me that if a return was changed before the IRS drain, their system rejected the e-file assuming the return was no longer as-filed. It was to protect us from having to amend. Or some such.

It changes the return on your own computer. And IF the efile has not gone to the IRS yet (and it does have to be quick), that fact makes ATX reject the efile.

Something funny to help us through the time change. http://www.scarymommy.com/daylight-saving-trailer-spring-forward-edition/

I found it by accident... went back into an efiled return; didn't even change anything - but was there longer than auto-save time. Return was "changed" and that caused my efile to reject. Fine once I resubmitted. Used it later, though, on purpose for JUST the reason you gave. Hit the button, and five minutes later an email, "oops we just got" form whatever. I was SO glad to see that "EF Reject" notice!

My bad!! It's the "Google Search" -- middle tab between "Calendar" and "MyATX" in the main title lines.

It will also contain negative A/R if recurring invoices post automatically on, say, January 1st -- but payments pre-dated that (for example, business space rent).

I agree with michaelmars and Jack from Ohio. He is in this with a profit motive. You can see the likely train wreck -- but he can't; he still thinks he's going to strike it rich. Who knows, maybe he will be the one who does! I know one person who actually makes enough from selling Mary Kay to live on. That doesn't mean all the tried-and-failed women in her downline weren't serious - it means they didn't have the (1) natural market this lady (former nurse) had, (2) the time/money available to put in the HUGE startup time investment, or (3) the go-for-the-jugular sales push (or ability). But they *wanted* to be profitable.

There is, in ATX. Or at least there was... Go change the return. ANY change. Add a 1 somewhere. Save it. That makes the EF Pending go to EF Rejected. Will work from the time you send the efile to ATX until the efile has been sent to the IRS.

Indeed. But if you want details for charities, Charity Navigator is a good source of all-in-one-place info.

I think if you use "Advanced Search" you can use 3 letters; Eric made that adjustment a year or three ago.