Catherine

We can thank the invention of the "mute" button for this, I do believe. Once we were no longer captive, the commercial had to be worth bothering with. Catherine

Watch all the way to the end through the info boilerplate; there are tag lines worth seeing. Catherine

We're all very glad to hear that Don is improving. I hope that he does come home soon, and that neither of you faces any more health crises for years to come. Catherine

Be warned that tiny marks also count and "non-numeric" -- including periods, apostrophes, and BLANK SPACES!!! (Ask me how I know this.....) Go through the return and, under edit, hit "Restore Field" to get rid of spurious characters Catherine

And the problem with _that_ is, the way Microsoft does bloatware, 3.5GB of RAM soon won't be enough to load Office, let alone any more useful programs. Open Office, anyone? Catherine

They do great work with gallbladders these days. My husband and I went out to take care of his mother when she had to have hers out a couple of years ago. She was 84 at the time and had laparoscopic day surgery. We brought her in first thing in the morning, had her home by mid-afternoon. The very next day, I had to physically remove a dust mop from her hands -- she was trying to mop up dog hair in the hall. I hope Don's goes as smoothly. Catherine

Done. And ongoing, through Tuesday at least. Catherine

I also thought it was a reminder to us all of what level of help proper tech support should provide.... Catherine

With apologies to all the men in the group..... Dear Tech Support: Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow-down in the overall performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NHL 4.3, MLB 3.0, and NBA 3.6. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, to no avail. What can I do? Signed, Desperate Dear Desperate: First, keep in mind Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Try to enter the command: "C:/ ITHOUGHTYOULOVEDME" to download Tears 6.2, which automatically should install Guilt 3.0. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will create Snoring Loudly. Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 or reinstall another Boyfriend program. These are not supported applications and will crash Husband 1.0. In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. I personally recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie 7.7. Good Luck, Tech Support

One of our family friends is an IT specialist; his recommendation is to avoid VISTA at all costs. Especially if you have older peripherals (printers, scanners, etc), as there are still compatibility problems with drivers for those devices and VISTA. It is still possible to get XP Pro computers. You have to look (and sometimes ask specifically), but they are available. Anyone who builds computers (as some folks here and on other groups have done) can certainly install XP Pro. Catherine

I'll suggest it to the NAEA and my state affiliate (MA). Unless someone else has national connections; I just pay my dues every year nationally but am more involved at the state level. Catherine

Well said, KC. There are two functions being spliced: accurate preparation and reporting of what actually occurred, and enforcement of accounting/tax rules at the specific taxpayer level. The first is the job of tax preparers. Advice and recommendation on the second is also the job of tax preparers. But enforcement is the job of the collecting agency. Trying to force us to take on a role not our own will drive away people who can't stomach being an IRS enforcer. It will increase the number of poorly prepared returns submitted (either self-prepared or done by unqualified preparers). And as these requirements keep creeping in, clients will lose the sense of us as their allies and reliable resources, and they will start to hide information from us. Ultimately, it serves no one. OK. Time to leave this thread and go write my congresscritters. Unfortunately for me, being in ultra-liberal Massachusetts, my congresscritters have never seen a regulation they didn't want to expand.... I am reminded of a line from Tolkien, "...over the years we have fought the long defeat" (paraphrased). Catherine

Apology accepted. There are certainly preparers who disregard the rules. I had a client whose previous preparer told her to sign and mail in her returns as "self-prepared" because there was less chance of an audit that way. The return he had prepared was a masterpiece of creativity and fantasy, and he deserved either a medal or jail time; perhaps both.

You completely neglected the portion of my response that talked about attached statements. If the client "intentionally disregards a rule or regulation" despite strong recommendations to the contrary, the penalties should fall ON THAT CLIENT, and NOT on the preparer. The preparer HAS performed due diligence in this area by informing the client, making strong recommendations, and then attaching the disclosure to the return. The snide remark about "Congress had to establish preparer penalties in the first place" is a personal attack. And has no place in this forum. I have respected your opinions in the past and have followed some lively threads with interest, striving to see the point of view presented by various people, always to my benefit and learning. But my respect for you has fallen significantly today.

But the point is not "fairness", but rather that we, as preparers, have no authority in our client's corporations to authorize - or de-authorize - any one particular treatment of expenses. Our job is to tell our clients what the rules are, and to prepare an accurate return based on what they have chosen to do. We all have clients who take much more conservative stands than they are entitled to, and those who push the edge of aggressive stands. We must make them aware of their rights and responsibilities. But they choose their level of comfort; we are neither their nannies nor their keepers, to choose for them. If a client came to me with zero salary but large distributions, I would be remiss to not tell that client of the rules and the consequences of breaking those rules. I may choose to decline to prepare the return, or choose to prepare it but add statements etc. But I have NO authority to force this client to change his practices. To then hold me responsible for this person's choices does nothing to advance a goal of accurate and complete reporting for tax purposes. The IRS's job should be to penalize the shareholder not following the rules, and not to penalize the person whose work will bring the case to them! Their job will be made harder if they must wade through poorly-prepared S-corp returns (done either by the shareholder or an unskilled preparer, if no qualified preparer will touch it), looking for no-salary cases. And that should be an argument that will catch a congresscritter's attention; less money brought in. Catherine

Hi all -- I have a new client with a messed-up situation. The business entity was a two-member LLC filing a 1065; one member (#2) walked out July '07. Remaining member (#1) filed for extension in mid-April. I got some (maybe most) of the information about two weeks ago. Here are the issues/questions I'm pondering: Member #2 leaving ended the partnership filing -- a short year 1065 should have been filed Nov 07. So that will be a late filing; no help for it now. Balance of 2007 goes on remaining owner's Schedule C for 2007. But -- the remaining member (#1) has been on payroll since Jan 07. In addition, he's taking taking some distributions. I found references on how a member may be considered an LLC employee, restrictions on benefits, etc. However, the Form 1065 line 9 for wages specifically states "other than to partners". Do I disregard this caution in this instance? Or, if they must be reported elsewhere -- then where? Anything else people can warn me to check for? Thanks. Catherine

One the Form 1-NR/PY you should check "Nonresident". The only income taxed in MA will be MA-source income (as opposed to some states that look at whole income, then apply a percentage correction to the tax due). On the Schedule R/NR, put the K-1 income on lined 9C and 9D. Interest will go on Line 24C only. Column A will get regular totals from the Federal; it's the overall. The _only_ amount you should end up with at the bottom of column E should be the MA partnership income. You should end up with about $740 tax due to MA. Feel free to email me off-group with more questions; [email protected] is the address. Catherine

The problem I've had over and over with individuals, partnerships, and S-corps is this: once you e-file an extension through ATX, it gets logged in their computers as the _return_ filed. So when you later go to e-file the return, it gets rejected by EFC for having already been transmitted. The EFC people have to do some special shenanigans to free the return to be transmitted to MassDOR. Sometimes (but not always) you get an e-file acceptance; sometimes you have to go to the MassDOR website and see there if they've accepted the return -- or call ATX and have them tell you verbally. There have been some other problems, but that's been the main one this year. Catherine

Sent to me by a tax preparer friend: The local restaurant was so sure that its host was the strongest man around that they offered a standing $1000 bet. The host would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice out would win the money. Many people had tried over time (weight lifters, longshoremen, etc.), but nobody could do it. Then one day, this scrawny little man came in, wearing thick glasses and a polyester suit, and said in a tiny, squeaky voice, "I'd like to try the bet." After the laughter had died down, the host said "OK," grabbed a lemon and squeezed away. Then he handed the wrinkled remains of the rind to the little man. But the crowd's laughter turned to total silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glass. As the crowd cheered, the host paid the $1000, and asked the little man, What do you do for a living? Are you a lumberjack, a weightlifter, or what?" The man replied, "I work for the IRS."

How about this one, given to me by a friend years ago: Dear Lord, So far today, God, I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, haven't lost my temper, haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or over-indulgent. I'm very thankful for that. But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on, I'm going to need a lot more help. Amen.

I took the old test and have NO interest in taking the new one. I used the Gleim course to prepare, and passed all four sections first try. Good luck. Catherine

Please let us know how it goes! I'm sticking with ATX for the coming tax year, but they are most definitely "on probation". I had some serious e-filing problems (especially with MA), and lots of instances where information did not flow properly to state forms. I was sorely tempted by Drake this year, but didn't quite make up my mind to switch. I'm sure there are a number of us besides just me who will be very curious how it goes for you -- the easy stuff, the surprise "gotcha's", the weirdnesses, and all. Catherine

I've been thinking of buying that one myself. LOL!! Catherine

I disagree; the mere fact that Congress' screw-ups become law does not change the fact that they screw up (and durned near everything they touch gets screwed up in one way or another, in my view). They have simply developed an efficient method for codifying idiocy. This opinion is most decidedly worth every penny you have paid for it. Catherine

It wasn't that long ago the they were strongly pushing trans fats as a safer and better alternative to the mean, nasty animal fats. Nincompoops. (That's not _really_ what I think of them, but it's one I can print. ) Catherine