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 !

Thanks Cathy... appreciate your help ! -Bob

Just looked at the form 8889 instrux, and it says on pg 5 under "Excess Contributions" that you can exclude any errant contributions if withdrawn by the due date of the return. Also exclude any distributions. So I would completely ignore the whole thing on the federal and CA returns, given that there is no income involved. No form 8889 needed.

I have been ignoring the annual bond premium amortization on a tax-exempt bond, and it was redeemed in 2008 with an original cost $1600 more than basis. IRS does not permit taking a loss on Sch D for this premium on a tax-exempt bond. To cover my past mistakes (over 7 years), I want to just take the whole $1600 bond premium amortization in 2008, and then book the sale price equal to basis on Sch D. Since it is a small item on this return, I think this raises fewer flags than recording a loss on Sch D for a tax-exempt, which is verboten ! And I think it's too small an issue to amend any returns. Only state tax is affected. What does anyone think? Is this a reasonable approach? Or am I just lazy?

Hi Tom.. I will give this a shot. No HSA's permitted for WI also. First, for CA, since no earnings accrued in the ineligible account, there is nothing to do. There was no initial deduction, there is no tax on withdrawal. So make sure it does not appear in the CA return at all. Second, for Federal, if no 1099 or 5498 forms were issued by the HSA custodian, there is also nothing to do. If there would have been earnings, they would need to go on Sch B, but since you said there were none, nothing to do. If taxpayer DID get a 1099 and 5498 (which is not due til May I think), then I would need to research how to handle. Maybe I am missing something at this late hour, but I think it might be this simple. Anyone else gone through an ineligible HSA contribution with a 1099 issued by the custodian?

Happy Birthday Booger. Did you formerly play first base in the American League? That's the only Boog er I ever heard of. Thanks for your reliable levity, it always breaks up a rough day !

Happy Birthday RoyDale... Your grand age must be responsible for your vast wisdom... I always read your informative posts. Thanks!

Hi Catherine... If you don't like to unprotect the sheets unless absolutely necessary (like me), you can cut and past the COLUMNS from the Excel source data, one column at a time. I think it should work. It did last year.

Good for you Bonnie.... Mike Mars, thanks for your idea. Very sneaky ! It may come in handy someday.

Hi all.. after fooling around with various possible entries on the 1099-R for inherited IRA, and with the form 8606, I am convinced that the program never considered a situation like this taxpayer's, namely: every year an inherited IRA distribution (IRA with 0 basis), and every year a non-deductible IRA contribution reported on form 8606. The program is trying to combine the IRA's, unaware that the basis of inherited IRAs must be kept separate from all basis calc's on regular IRAs. This particular year, taxpayer also has a large rollover to report on 16a of 1040, so I decided not to use KC's method, because it adds the inherited IRA distribution on line 16 and is more difficult for the taxpayer to trace his transactions when reviewing his return. So I will go back to the old method of just entering an override on line 15b. At some point the inherited IRA transactions will become more commonplace, and then I would hope this to be programmed correctly. After thinking about it, there are so many different possibilities for the inherited/regular contribution/distribution transactions, that the programming would be really messy. I would think that prosystems fx or ultra tax would handle this, but not the lower-cost programs like ATX. But I still like ATX better......

Me too... Only happened 2 or 3 times during tax season, but never had a problem postponing with the auditors.