rick in cal

RoyDaleOne, Your response was the same as my initial response and just the fact that very few people are chiming in leads me to believe that this write off is seldom used. If you go to Quickfinder or some other similar source, look up Redeemable Ground Rents and tell me what you think. I interpret it as saying if the contract is written correctly the monthly rent is written off as interest by the home owner who is paying land rent in addition to their mortgage. I'm getting ready to amend some returns and would love for anyone to tell me if they think I'm reading this correctly or not. I wouldn't even mind a couple of insults from Jainen just to get his valued opinion!

Tom, I remember talking to you recently about you building your practice in a new area. This credit is a door opener, especially with home prices coming down so far. Did you make it down to the Rose Bowl for the Fresno St game.

Thanks for all the responses especially Taxabilly. I down loaded the form and although it wasn't the answer I wanted, the answer was there. Line one; enter the $7500 but if someone other than a spouse held an interest in the home enter your share of the amount only. Either way it's a nice perk and I have a number of clients who may be ready to buy a home or help their kids buy a home and this could make them act now. It has already added two new tax clients to my practice through the calls I've made to existing clients. I've also called a couple of real estate brokers who may refer some new clients to me because of this new credit.

I have a relatively new client who just called me to ask if the rent she pays on the land her house sits on is deductable. I got the usual reason we get so often; "my friend deducts his rent" At first I thought about mobile home parks and said no but after further conversation and more details I told her I'd research it. Her monthly land rent fits the IRS criteria to be treated like interest under Redeemable Ground Rents. Now I'm wondering why mobile home parks don't market there space the same way. Does anyone deal with this situation. It seems very rare here in Ca.

I can't seem to find a way to download the new 2008 form 5405 and instructions even though an agent at the IRS told me there was a link at there website to do so. What I'm trying to determine is can two single taxpayers buy a house together and each qualify for the $7500 loan if they both meet all the other criteria. I can't find anything that says they can't and buying a 400k house shouldn't be any different than buying two 200k condo's. The IRS agent did say no but didn't seem to sure of her answer. Does anyone know where I can go to download the information I need.

Thanks for the correction. I never thought about that. Actually I grew up a huge Cleveland Browns fan and they used the phonetic spelling of dogs as well as in the dawgpound.

Tom I decided to send you a post on the college baseball world series the first thing this morning and I see Eli and others beat me to it. If they are playing Georgia it will be nothing but bulldogs. Let's hope our dawgs is better than their dawgs!

If you are a member of HITS (head in the sand) committee you can't see the facts to even make an evaluation.

For the first time since I started using ATX software in 1997 I have not renewed early. I haven't been contacted by ATX recently either which leads me to believe that maybe they moved my file from the sales department to support which means I might never be called back. I like the software but have no faith in the company so I'm still looking for an alternative.

Okay KC, I give up, I concede, and I will wave the white flag. Neither one of us is going to budge. I might be wrongly assuming that Bush was concealing information in his 2003 State of the Union Address. Next I'm going to call Joe Wilson, Colon Powell, the CIA and 70% of the American public and tell them they are wrong as well.

Jainen. I was reading your posts defending the working class and you held your own very well. The consensus was that the newest generation doesn't want to do an honest day's work and wants to be compensated much more than they are worth. It reminds me of a well known individual who was quoted as saying that the new generation seems unmotivated, waunders with no purpose and each generation gets worse. He went on to say that the future looks to be doomed if young people are not willing to take on more initiative and work like the current generation. Based on the fact that this was Socrates in the fifth century BC I'm guessing maybe we are in trouble by now.

Pat Buchanan is someone I admire greatly and although he is considered to be conservative I see him as a populist much like T. Roosevelt. I plan to read his book eventually. Incidently, I don't see a great deal of correlation between his views and those people who call themselves conservatives today.

Again, I didn't mean to single you out on WMDs. The fact is you were duped just like the Clintons and the rest of us by Bush who lied and withheld information to get approval from congress to invade Iraq. As for what the liberals did to the Clintons, I was referring mostly to the cable news networks coverage of the primaries. Fox who is not a liberal network may have been the fairest but they would always bring in Dick Morris in as an unbiased analyst instead of a commentator and he has been on a ten year mission to destroy Hillary Clinton ever since she fired him. CNN would always included Howard Bernstein in their analyst team and he wrote an unflattering biography of Hillary. Hardly objective. In addition to that Gloria Borger and Cafferty could hardly conceal their dislike for the Clintons and Cafferty, right after pretending to report the news would go into a commentary often tearing into Hillary's campaign but never finding anything wrong with Obama's tactics. I could spend hours on this but I still have taxes to do. Finally, although I may have expressed myself to strongly from time to time I don't think it is ever right to misquote anyone. You said you KNOW I don't agree that "small businesses create most of the new jobs and opportunities". Did you misspeak or did you think you saw me say that somewhere?

Zeke My post was not meant to be a personal attack on KC and when reading it I probably could have left the first sentence about weapons of mass destruction out. As for the rest of what I wrote I stand by what I wrote and after reading four pages of posts in which American workers were for the most part trashed as lazy, greedy, and generally unworthy of employment, it needed to be addressed. We have THE MOST productive workers in the industrial world and they work hundreds of hours more per year than any Euopean country's work forces. They just might have the right to organize given the fact that in the last century they were gunned down in the streets of Chicago when they had a peaceful march supporting an eight hour work day or beaten in Flint because they wanted to discuss working conditions. Today we have the Enrons and World Coms who steal from their employees and wasn't it Wallmart the company so loved in many posts on this board that had to pay a record amount in fines for cheating their employees out of their overtime.

KC I'll keep this as civil as I can but I remember your right wing posts from the last board. I thought maybe since you weren't being political anymore that maybe you were still out looking for the weapons of mass destruction you GUARANTEED our troops (including the 5000 dead ones) would find! Back to your post; If it wasn't Bush's policies that caused this economic mess then tell us what he did right. If it wasn't corporate greed then tell us how multimillion golden parachutes help our economy, and one more thought on corporations; supply siders are quick to point out that if we tax them they just pass the taxes on to the consumer. What do you think they do with the eight figure salaries and stock options? If it wasn't free trade (with no restrictions) then tell us how the multibillion trade deficit is adding jobs instead of causing unemployment. If the oil companies are merely passing on the increase in oil prices wouldn't their profits remain roughly the same instead of going up tenfold! We hear this misanthopic nonsense each time we make a small adjustment in the minimum wage We hear from the restauranteur who is going to wash his own dishes beause he can't afford a $.50 increase, the painting contractor who's going to have to pick up a paint brush to save $4.00, the landscaper who's going to get behind a lawnmower and lay somebody off, or the small business owner who is going to become a delivery boy to save $20 a week. To my way of thinking, I wouldn't eat in a restaurant where $4.00 a day could cause the owner wash dishes instead of watching how my food is ordered and prepared. I wouldn't hire a contractor who would cut corners to save $4.00 a day. I might buy something from the small business owner but I can't because the idiot is out making deliveries and his store's closed! Finally, I think these mean spirited opinions bother me for the most part because after 42 years of voting Democratic I've left the party over what the ultra liberals did to the Clintons and if I'm going to go over to the dark side and vote for a Republican I would like to see just a little concern for the poor and middle class.

It's too bad we can't have Bush for 6 or 8 more terms! It would take him that long to reach the employment levels that Clinton achieved in the late 90s. How come employment went up over 200,000 jobs each and every month he was in office even when he raised the minimum wage.

That was so amazingly easy I can't believe it. Thank you. That is a classic, "can't see the forest through the trees" example.

AVG notified me that my free AVG 7.5 is about to expire and I needed to upgrade to 8.0 I did this and took all the steps to download the free version to my computers. The program congratulated me and said I am now fully protected but when I opened the new program it says I might not be protected because some componets report an error. Below that it says the antispyware and the antivirus; database is outdated. I can't find a way to correct this yet. Does anyone know if I'm missing something? Have other people updated recently.

Well said!

Thank you B Jani for the detailed pros and cons. The return mgr nonflexibility is a deal breaker for me. I also wanted to mention that the auto entry by zip code didn't work for me either because I've always printed in all upper case and the TRX auto entry prints in lower case. I've seen both methods used and I wonder if I'm in a distinct minority?

Tom, I have done multiple year returns and without disputing what KC said about six years, I have had cases that involved 10 and 12 tears. The later was brought to me by someone who was preparing to do an offer with a tax attorney. I prepared four years using all of his deductions and did eight years of short forms. All of his earned income was w-2 income and his income was probably higher each year than your clients. Don't worry to much about Ca taxes, if he was working for wages and having any taxes at all with held he's fine. As for your fees, I would bill for those first three years and get paid then bill and release in two or three year increments.

As I've said recently, I really would like to change software companies based on how CCH treated its customers this year. I've been taking a hard look at TRX but I can't get past a couple of aspects. I print in all capital letters so the quick entry of addresses doesn't work for me and the printingis of poor quality in general. I do about 30 corps/partnerships which I don't think will have efile available. Finally, the real deal breaker for me is options and preferences, especially the inability to customize the return mgr. I am going to wait and evaluate their $699 package and see if offers more options. I also am very interested in what Mel is doing and would certainly give anything he comes up with a solid test. Mel if you're listening perhaps you could offer some options which would include an ability to purchase supplemental programs which would compliment some of the other software companies basic programs. For instance, I would buy atx's most basic program, maybe buy allstates and tell them to stick their books and SUPPORT and email and continuing education and kleinrock (whatever that is). Finally, if someone is looking to start a new business how about moving to Georgia and put and ad on this board that you would pick any new software and mail it for say; $20 and a postage stamp. Even after the mass exodus this year there's money to be made. I will be your first customer so I can tell CCH and kleinrock (whatever that is) to stick their shipping and handling wherever they stuck their books, support, email, continuing education and kleinrock products!

They don't have a forum, it looks like they're trying out a new concept called support! I'm pretty sure I'll be making the move but I can see there will be some things missing and I don't want to drop ATX until I'm sure it won't disrupt my practice. There is no guarantee that they will be able to efile business returns so I will need a backup plan for that. Anyone know how I can get 30 to 40 1120's/1065's efiled elsewhere? Secondly, I'll be going back to Quickfinder for taxplanning books. Finally, I am not sure I will like their format as well. They don't have as many options and preferences as ATX. I don't use this forum a lot anymore but I still find it invaluable. If someone would repeat the info on contributing to defray some of the costs of keeping this board alive I would love to send a check.

Terry, I'm trying the program out right now as well. The minor things I don't like are the forms list size which makes it hard to move from form to form and the inability to move from from to return mgr and back quickly. I do 400+ returns a year with 20 corps and partnerships and I am serious considering making the change. I will be talking to a rep today. One big difference is I've learned (as most of us have) not to use supprt since it is virtually non existent. I just come to this board and see who else is having the same problem with ATX and see what the solutions are. We will now have to rely on the software's support department. Here's hoping CCh doesn't buy them up and ruin another effective software company.

He IS 5 years old and since our school systems are atrocious maybe he wants him to be educated in Pakistan and at least come out of primary school knowing how to read and write.