Catherine

Thanks, Eric, and a very to us!!

KC -- Hope you have an absolutely FABULOUS and VERY Thank you SO much for all the advice you give us here; we need you and we love you! Catherine

Sounds very bizarre and that there is a LOT of very pertinent information missing. I think your idea of talking to the IRS first sounds good. My one concern would be getting a POA through fast enough. I've only ONCE gotten one filed through e-services successfully. So you may want to see if BOTH these folks could be in your office for a conference call with the IRS on Monday - and warn them that they'll be twiddling their thumbs for a while. You, of course, will be hammering away at your computer on another return while they're listening to that horrid muzak on speakerphone. Good luck!

YAY Margaret!!!!

Great plates!!

Hope you have a VERY

Congratulations!

WONDERFUL!!!

Hope you have a VERY

Very funny!!

To my distant friends, MargaretMort and bstaxes -- my prayers for full and speedy recovery, and for peaceful hearts in your families, to you both. Love, Catherine

Dear Client -- I called you two weeks ago to let you know your taxes are done. When you called back, for the first time, THIS morning, I was already fully booked for the day. I know you're in a hurry to get your refund and are now mad that I can't change my schedule to "squeeze you in" and that tomorrow isn't as convenient for you. Tough noogies. Sincerely,

Hope you have a VERY

Hope you have a VERY

I'll second Kea -- on my list for tomorrow was to file extensions, including a 1041. I'll hold off on that one.

I read it as a straight 10% commission question. Looking back more carefully, the first question should be -- WHAT is the total she's paying interest on, under what specific terms? $1,000/month plus interest -- if someone's charging her 10%/month (11% - whatever) -- there may be violation of state rules on usury. More questions to get the full story. But percentages depend highly on what direction you're calculating from.

Again, it's for the PAPER-filed returns (and don't forget the little "I do not want preparer to file my return electronically" checkbox!). They are read by machine and if the PAGE count doesn't match the coding, the Mass DOR folks have to pull it from processing and look at it in person. So you get to look at each form in the filing copy, count the total pages, and put in that number.

Seems to me the agents calculate it that way because it works better for them. 10% of product sold is 0.10 x (sales total). End of discussion. It's a standard problem of "direction" in reporting statistics -- going from a product failure rate of 1% to a product failure rate of 2% is a 1% increase -- it is also a 100% increase (doubling of the rate). The result depends on where you start, what direction you go, and at what you are looking. The careless, the unscrupulous, and the biased, can twist these to make answers that favor them (or their point). Which is why whenever someone presents you with statistics, you need to know where they started from and why they're using their chosen methodology. See a lovely little book entitled, "How to Lie With Statistics" Book link Should be required reading. When I was on my town's Finance Committee, we all read it; it was VERY useful.

The only help I can give on this one is the trick that putting a "." (a period) in the state field cues the program that the address is foreign.

It's not quite as simple as counting the e-filed forms; that page count serves a different purpose (and yes, it's a royal pain in the patootie). The count is required for PAPER filing, because all the information gets encoded in the 2D bar symbols on the pages, and those pages get read by a scanner (which helps explain the truly abysmal print format; no one actually has to READ those horrid forms). The first page includes the total pages in the return -- if they don't match, the return gets kicked out for further scrutiny. Sorry for the delay in response -- was out of the office most of the day. Catherine

At one point there was a trick to this. You put a "." (a period) in the state field, and that tells (told, anyway) the program that the address listed was out-of-country. I haven't tried it yet myself this year as I haven't done my out-of-country client return yet. Hope this helps. Catherine

Hope you have a VERY :bday:

Hope you have a VERY :bday: