Catherine

Frazzled -- ((((HUGS)))) to you! I am so glad you felt this board was a safe enough place to vent and one where you would get sympathy and support. And I second rfassett's prayers for you and for your poor friend.

bump -- still hoping for some words of wisdom and/or warning

Thank you for the news; Harlan was indeed a great guy. We are diminished.

Two clients have brought me this one this year. Any surprises I need to watch out for in donations of appreciated stock to charities? How about if it was bought through an ESPP plan? Or other employer purchase devices? Thanks!

Thanks -- what I really was not certain of was the treatment. "Rollover" was the way to *make* it work -- but in my mind a rollover is a transfer to another account, rather than putting funds back into the same account. Drake has a section at the bottom of the input screen for rollover amount entries. Thanks to all!

Withdraw. Can't take a loan from an IRA; just a 401k-type plan.

One I know about - but have never done one before. Client took $50K out of an IRA but put it back a week later. She sold her house, bought a new one, closed on the new one first and needed some cash at the first closing that was coming from the second closing. So the IRA custodian reported the distribution on a 1099-R. They also show a "rollover" contribution on Form 5498. Is that the right way to report this? As though it was a rollover? Thanks.

I'm easy at a couple of weeks - and that does NOT include the returns with stuff missing. Post-it notes, yes --- but I am now also doing copious electronic notes in the file where all the clients' stuff is kept. Belt, suspenders, duct tape, and staples...

Good grief. He must think very highly of his advice, OR he is marketing to huge firms where several dozen accountants will use the same books for reference. Or both.

I got a box of 12 dark-chocolate-dipped strawberries last year; man oh MAN were they good!

A stray 1099-MISC was the culprit. Thank you all!

Nope; employee wages have to be grossed up by the employee portion of ss/medi paid by the employer.

Well I 'm glad I finished up two returns other than the three-fer that was going to be easy; one of those is giving me serious grief via the software. Client no longer needs a Sch C, and I keep deleting the information from the screen and it comes back! Then tells me I have an error because there is no income. Even tech support it stumped on this one (Drake, not ATX -- I'm still waiting for my guaranteed-within-48-hours callback from ATX from Feb 2013).

I've got one -- not even a client; a courtesy. Guy has a corporation and his dad is an out of state CPA who does the taxes but cannot e-file the MA corporate return. So I have been e-filing it for them, for years now. They pay me a token amount, for time and trouble. Well, *this* year, I cannot get the MA 355 Sch D to populate correctly to save my life (or my hair color). I have spent FOUR hours on this stupid thing so far and it's not ready yet! So here it is 2PM, I haven't had lunch yet, I am ROYALLY aggravated -- and have accomplished nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nechevo. De rien. Bupkis. Niente. My tea is steeping, and I'm gonna go eat and sulk. Then I'll take out my fiddle for a while. Once I've completely calmed down I'll come back and try to get those other three returns I wanted to finish right off, this morning, done instead.

I just had one of those myself today. Actually, one I had forgotten about; that's why I have the WIP spreadsheet! Opened the scanned docs, everything was there, looked at the handwritten notes, and badaboom badabing done. Emailed them asking if they want to come in or have me mail a package.

I have never seen them pop like corn..... Then again, I *never* tried to deep fry them.

Gnocchi (pronounced nyock-ee, emphasis on first syllable) are made of either potato or ricotta (or sometimes a mix). You roll the dough out to a long snake, cut it in roughly 1" - 1.5" long pieces, then "roll" them with a very easy to do, very hard to describe flick of the wrist with a fork to make ridges on the sides. Boil for just a few minutes (they float when done), and serve with butter & grated cheese, or spaghetti sauce, or pesto. I make them alfredo-style, with peas. Yum!

Shari's Berries http://www.berries.com/is similar to Ed Arr and I think even better. Have been given both; Shari's were better and the packaging was incredible. You can pick delivery day. They also have non-fruit items; bite-sized dessert items, popcorn, toffee. Swiss Colony also has very nice gifts and they also have cheese gifts, nuts, and baked goods. We love their petit fours. http://www.swisscolony.com/

Don't tell him that - he might not GO!! Just tell him he needs to find someone else, who specializes in expat issues. If he insists on you doing the research, that's billable time paid IN ADVANCE. He'll leave. (I don't usually advocate charging clients for research time. However, if the research benefits him and him alone, and he is the one insisting YOU do it -- bill him!)

Sent to me by a friend -- really funny. Less than three minutes. The "Manslater" from 2010.

Paid in advance!

Couldn't get to church this morning and instead poked around on facebook and a couple of friends whose posts I follow, had some doozies today. Wednesday Addams (Addams family) is all grown up - and responds to catcalls. Language warning. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/13/wednesday-addams-reacts-to-catcalling_n_6677674.html The guy who records the voice of Winnie the Pooh, reading Darth Vader's lines (I haven't listened to this in full yet - the sound quality isn't the best and the howling winds outside are making it hard for me to hear).

Possibly. But I also *highly* recommend Sir Terry's Diskworld books. But not for public transportation; you WILL suddenly laugh out loud when one of his inimitable zingers comes up! And then people will look at you like you're dangerous or something. Or at least they used to, before they were all plugged in to their i-things.

I keep waiting for the snow globes to turn to wire trolleys (shopping carts) and then to shopping malls. [Read Sir Terry Pratchett's "Reaper Man" where Death himself is put on layoff by the Auditors, and shopping malls are parasitic life forms that feed off cities. They hatch from eggs that look like snow globes and have a juvenile phase as shopping trolleys.]

Here's your hat and don't stumble on the way out.