Catherine

Gee, I was thinking "Nirvana backup".... Smells Like Tax Spirit? B)

You're welcome down here tomorrow to help me dig out from the foot of snow we're expected to get. ;-) And when my current subscription runs out, I will be checking you folks for online backup. catherine

I'd planned on adding a statement. It will about double the length of this otherwise super-simple return, LOL. Catherine

Ain't that the truth!! I sent some W-2 data to Massachusetts online in January of last year (direct login from the client) -- to THIS DAY it still shows "processing" as the status; same status as it had immediately after being transmitted. Over a year!

I ended up getting a pair of "computer glasses" just for that purpose. I was getting the _worst_ cricks in my neck. No more! Now to stop the hunching, somehow.

For me, it's my shoulders, from hunching forward. No matter how much I try to remind myself to sit up straight.

The problem I have with this is on the Form 4137, Line 1a -- "Name of employer to whom you were required to, but did not report all your tips". The employer does get tip information from the wait staff - but specifically does NOT accept this information from the counter staff. That means this person may be subject to a 50% penalty for not reporting information that the employer will not accept. So I was wondering if I'd missed something somewhere. But it sounds more like the employer is missing their own duties. Sigh. Catherine

Can't find guidance on this anywhere.... (it's probably staring me in the face and I'm just not seeing it, like the USB cable I looked for for a half-hour that was on my desktop in plain sight). Client has part-time work in a restaurant. This person is NOT a table server; instead is responsible for getting sodas and fountain drinks ready for servers, but does wait on some few folks who sit at the counter. Instead of server wages of ~ $3.00/hour, client is paid $9.50/hour because no tip income is expected. However, client did get about $600 total tips last year. How do I report this? I won't bother folks with the different ways I've considered and looked up. Thanks, Catherine

Ditto and more!! I have MozyPro online secure backup that does a daily backup in the background. I have it set for "faster backup, slower computer" but have noticed NO diminution of computer speed with that. We have on-site backup hard drive that happens (...not as often as it should) for "cold-metal restore" capability, as MozyPro does DATA, not executables or system. That on-site mirrors itself to a second drive weekly (automatically), and the mirrored disk gets swapped regularly with an identical one in an off-site safe deposit box. Then I close every tax year by putting pdf's of all returns and scanned original documents on an archive-quality, gold-coated CD or DVD, which also goes into the safe box. On another forum I read, one man a couple years ago had his office burgled during tax season; all computers and peripherals taken. Thanks to an auto-backup system and an external hard drive he took home daily, they lost NO work, just ("just" -- hollow laugh) a couple days to replace equipment and re-load programs. Learned my lesson from his story! Catherine

My older daughter brought home this story today: One of her co-workers is a 24-year-old college graduate. When the boss handed out the W-2's, my daughter's response was "Great!". Her co-worker looked at the envelope in his hand and said, "So, what is this FOR?" Catherine

More important than the drive, then (assuming you pick decent hardware), will be your backup software. We've been very happy with Acronis True Image. Personally, I don't use the scheduled task for automatic backup, but don't see why it shouldn't work as well as the rest of the system. Catherine

Beware: flash drives can (and DO) fail without warning. If that's your only backup, at least use multiples. What do you want from the external hard drive? Network access to files? Daily backup of returns? Ease of taking work home; just pick up the drive and go? All those can change the type of drive and setup thereof. So, more details, please. Catherine

How long can I expect it to take to get ack's on 1099's? First ones I submitted were on 1/15 (nine days ago, now), and status is still just "Transmitted to EFC". Is this usual (note I did NOT say "reasonable")? Catherine

I signed up this year for Fee Collect in case any client really wanted to use it. However, the returns I've been working on all get plastered with SBBT RAL-form nonsense and warnings of disclosures needed and all kinds of stuff -- but nowhere do I see just a Fee Collect option (I do see the Audit Shield option on the billing invoice options page). So, where can I find out about how to use Fee Collect without spending a month plowing through stuff that doesn't apply? And if I decide that this is just not worth it, how can I "un-apply" for this so-called "convenience"? Thanks, all. Catherine

The best blonde jokes I've heard have all been told to me by blondes.... The smart blonde women I know seem to take a real glee in blonde jokes. Catherine

I loved it and sent it off to a couple of friends who will also appreciate it. Thanks! Catherine

Can you say "crunch your keel?" Catherine

Sure, why not? Catherine

Doesn't the client have to sign Form 6847, which is then faxed to the IRS before you can e-file? Only once; good basically forever. Catherine

Hey folks -- Who has transmitted 1099's before? I sent some in last week and the status is "Transmitted to EFC". Should I expect _some_ kind of acknowledgment that they were accepted? This was a "test" client with only a few 1099's; I have a whole slew more ready to go once I'm sure they are actually getting through. So, how do I tell? TIA, Catherine

Theft is theft, and a lie is a lie -- but doesn't it make sense to go after the bigger thieves first? Bang for your buck, and all that? Does all the EIC fraud add up to what Madoff stole? Just a thought.

Remember Lloyd Bridges in "Airplane"? "Guess I picked the wrong week to stop smoking" (snorting cocaine) (sniffing glue) (etc). Just don't jump out the window! Hang in there. Speakerphone or headset, radio in the background, and other clients' work can help make it more tolerable. Catherine

(Sorry, Catherine, I can't endorse the "Once done, it was over" approach to math calculations.) -- Well, I wasn't talking about math errors. For those, double-checking calculations is easy and not a problem. Rather, I was talking about theory or judgment call errors. there's a lot of "well, maybe this, maybe that, what if I look at it this way, does this special case apply" judgment in the test. THOSE are the "don't second guess yourself" places. You can dither yourself into a frenzy of wrong answers by agonizing too long and revisiting stuff over and over. ...ambiguous questions. Who cares? IRS fixes those every year, and any new ones don't count in the score anyway. Not quite. they fix some -- and create others. It seems to be almost a wash, year to year. There are two tricks to remember to keep you from freaking out in the exam (as I saw happen to a couple of people!). #1 -- Read each question VERY carefully -- lots of wrong answers come from jumping to answer the question before you understand it. When I took the securities license tests, the most important thing to do was to read each question carefully, and parse out what they were asking. Conditional triple negatives with inverted syntax will foul up anyone who doesn't take the time to figure out very specifically WHAT is being asked. Ditto on the EA exam -- although it's more the tax details than the syntax. #2 -- Don't get spooked if the question (or the answers provided) don't make sense. You AREN'T (necessarily) in over your head, there ISN'T (probably) some huge area of tax law you don't understand -- you've simply run into another ambiguous question. Someone will protest it, and it will be stricken (or credit will be given for more than one answer). ....but -- hello? --they change the questions each year! However, when you study several years' worth, you start to see patterns in what they ask. The same question will appear in several exams, with details changed. So when you run across one of these in an exam, it feels like familiar territory. Still need to read that question carefully, however! Catherine

Congratulations and deepest sympathies?

I had one client switch to EFTPS because their bank was fussing about accepting coupons (had to go to a manager, not a teller), holding funds too long, and the client was getting IRS notices saying, in essence, "we got money we didn't know what to do with so we're applying it to your 941 tax deposits for month X" (when the coupon had clearly shown Form 941, month X). They charge these folks close to $100/month in bank fees for several accounts plus the float on all the money they hold; how much more do they want? Oh, I forgot. They also want a few billion from us taxpayers so their doofus managers can get juicy bonuses. So of _course_ they don't want to deal with tax deposit coupons! Catherine