RJM

Thanks John... I watched this, had not seen it before. Catherine, thanks for the reminder about the Constitution. It's on my desktop now, and I will be reading it a few times to shake those old brain cells loose. It would be great if the public schools still taught kids about this document. But it appears to be only cursory in the few cases where I have found that it is being taught. Civics class is way different today than when I grew up!

Thanks for the cite/site Catherine. This is the best approach to illuminating the massive usurping of individual rights in process by the feds now. I hope this constitutional perspective catches on in the press.

A new client is a 1/3 partner with his son and another student with one of these transactions. The cool thing is I think the 2 boys can split the $8000 homebuyer credit, but they must commit to stay in teh house for a while (I think 3 yrs?, still working on setting up the books). The boys fixed up a junker house for their capital contributions, and the new client (dad) put up the cash for the down payment. The boys are renting out several rooms to students and expect to make profit right away.

Me too ! Thanks KC for all you do.

I thought ProSeries and ProSystems FX were 2 different products. ProSeries is the professional version of Turbotax, and ProSystems FX is the cadillac CCH product. I used ProSystems FX for about 5 years and think it was probably the best tax software product available. I think they now have forms entry mode as well. The big drawback is that it has always been really expensive. Never used ProSeries, but did demo Lacerte several years back. It is the step-up product from ProSeries I think, and is used by mid-size to large-size practices, because it is also very expensive.

Me too !!! Thanks all for your thoughtful and friendly posts. Glad its over again. Wish I could have attended a tea party, but too tired ! Can't wait to start shopping for an air gun for basement target practice (thanks for the idea Catherine).

I do what rfasset does, start with saying "you had a great year"... and lead into more tax owed and why. This seems like a sales technique (get the prospect to start saying yes). Most bigger returns with large balance due, the clients are savvy enough to know they would owe a bunch, and are comfortable with the interest charges by the IRS. But I get few of these because most clients with large or unusual returns contact me between July and December, and we do some mini tax planning, trying to adjust withholding in the later months of the year. So over the years I get fewer returns with large balance due.

I quit copying most client stuff about 5 years ago. Learned that brokers and banks are required to keep all statements, transaction documents, 1099s, etc for at least 6 years, so they can always be retrieved in the statute of lim's period. I put all the client data into 9 x 12 envelope and insert behind the client letter. The only things I copy are weird securities purchase confirms, for basis backup in later years, and I always copy k-1s. These go into a permanent file. For 2007 tax year, I stopped making a paper copy of returns for my file, relying on pdf's only. This has saved lots of time, paper, toner. And I have a larger wider monitor now, so I can easily view last year's pdf return while keying in data for this year. To be cautious, I have a large-screen laptop on my desk which I can use if the desktop ever crashes, but now I am using the laptop to do most tax research. Most of the changes I have made in processing have come from suggestions on this and the old ATX board. Not totally paperless, but getting closer each year! PS- I always keep the fed and state copies of W2s also, in case there is an e-file failure and I need to prepare paper returns quickly.

My wife and I recently bought handguns and we are trying to schedule time at ranges for kind of a recurring "date". Sounds like a fun hobby, and something we can do together. I grew up in the sticks where most guys and many ladies hunted, and I miss the target practice mostly. Funny thing here in WI, there is a real shortage of ammo right now. There are lots of people hoarding it ever since last November. Gun sales have skyrocketed also.

Eric, this sounds to me like you are pulling our various legs.. This means you ARE joshin', right? My first thought was, Oh No, they threatened to sue because of the name usage. But then it would be easy to just change the name. Now I think you are kiddin !

Jimmer, there is a form you can add to the return called "Permanent Data", or something like that. In the form there are numerous tabs for tracking things for the taxpayer. One tab has an S-corp basis tracking spreadsheet. Just look in the Index tab, then bunny-hop to the S-corp tab. Hope this is what you are looking for. There are also loss carryover and I think at-risk tracking entries you can make right in the K-1 input forms, toward the bottom of the input forms.

Thanks Margaret.... I tried your "badger" tactic. Carrie in ATX CS got all fixed except one remaining. Hopefully fixed soon.

NUTS ! there's only 5 days to go.... Hope this isn't like last year again.

Maybe try the state client letter tab, and un-check and re-check the "will e-file" box. Once in a while this unchecks by itself, with no user input. Don't know why, but seems to happen to me once or twice each year.

Still waiting for a dozen 1099's to get accepted by IRS. Anyone else still waiting? It's getting kinda late !