HV Ken

Interesting that nobody on this thread is talking about the new ATX relationship with iTransact. Not only can you use this relationship to have access to competitve national pricing (instead of more costly low volume alternatives that small businesses typically have access to), but you can also become an advisor and offer credit card processing to your clients, often at a savings of 20-30%. I am now an iTransact advisor! We offer a free "Sure Save Analysis" to our small business clients.

I will be glad to talk to anyone about this service, and if you are not interested in becoming an advisor yourself, I can help you find out if using iTransact as your merchant service provider will give you access to more favorable rates.

I have read the people are using either one large monitor or dual monitors in order to have two years of ATX open side by side when doing preparation in an effort towards a paperless office.

I purchased a nice 23" monitor on Black Friday and would like to know what I need to do so that I can bring up two years of ATX side by side on this new monitor. I am guessing that you somehow divide the monitor into two virtual monitors, but I don't know how to do it. I am running Windows XP Home (Version 2002, Service Pack 3).

Thanks!

Please take a second to vote in the poll. I'm interested in how many people use a smart phone device like an iPhone, Blackberry, Android phone, etc

I voted NO now, but I anticipate moving up to a smart phone around the holiday season. Since I am a Verizon customer, that would probably be a droid.

Hi all. The ATX Customer Advisory Board (CAB) had their on site trip to the new consolidated CCH SFS offices in Kennesaw, GA on Thursday 9/30 and Friday 10/01.

There we got to meet the CCH SFS President, several VPs, the Product Managers, key developers, etc. We got a tour of the new offices, including sales, development, and customer support, as well as the raised floor server room. We talked about customer satisfaction, items that are needed to be fixed or added to the product, future long term plans, additional services they have recently announced or will be announcing, etc.

I must tell you the entire event was quite impressive. The new offices are very nice and well thought out. The company has short and long term plans for their products, and from what I saw, ATX is not going away. CCH SFS appears to be committed to the product and customer support.

Any fears I had about ATX (I have been a user since the mid 1990s) going away (or being forced to TaxWise) after all the problems and poor decisions we experienced when CCH bought ATX a few years ago - these fears have all been laid to rest for me. It's too bad they couldn't have their entire 30,000+ user community experience what those of us on the CAB got to experience.

I know some of my fellow CAB members are also on this board - hopefully they will share their impressions as well.

HV Ken

From a New Yorker cartoon: two men in high-end business suits. One says, "These new regulations will totally change the way we get around them."

If you want to see the cartoon, click here: cartoonbank.com

I agree with having the fees deducted through an IRS system as compared to a bank product (that was the only reason we used the bank product anyway), but I do like having/knowing the debt code. It helps us to direct our clients where to look if their refund has been reduced.

We have a client who owes around $10,000 from previous years. He has lost his job and lost his home. He is self-employed and lost some of his contracts. His situation appears to be well suited for an Offer in Compromise.

What suggestions do you have for pricing this engagement, obtaining a retainer, etc. ?

We are familiar with the process, but we have never actually submitted one yet.

Thanks for any advice/assistance.

There is an article posted on smartmoney.com on 7/7 entitled "How the Expiring Bush Tax Cuts Affect You" written by The Tax Guy by Bill Bischoff. You can see the article here: SmartMoney.com Article

Here are the hilights:

• Higher tax rates for all
  
• Higher capital gains and dividends taxes for all
  
• Return of the marriage penalty
  
• Return of phase-out rule for itemized deductions
  
• Return of phase-out rule for personal exemptions
  

I am curious how you communicate information like this to your clients ?

What advice are you giving them before year end to plan for these changes ?

There are going to be a lot of very unhappy campers sitting across the tables from us next tax season the way things look right now!

And please - this is not intended to be a political discussion - merely tax implications....

I would be curious to know how that first meeting went, and what kind of things were discussed, if you are allowed to say.

I hope I stay within bounds! Certainly there are areas where I am not at liberty to comment.

It was an introductory meeting. The President of Small Firm Services welcomed us, the Director of Project Management explained the group's goals, and the group is being facilitated by the Product Manager. All the volunteer participants (like me) introduced themselves and gave a brief description of their perspective.

The role of the advisory board was explained as assisting SFS to better understand the needs of customers through:

• Increasing understanding of their need for new products or solutions

• Evaluating enhancements to existing offerings

• Contributing to development (e.g. through possible beta participation)

• Identifying workflow gaps SFS can help solve in their businesses

SFS had conducted and end of year survey and went over the results with us and asked us for our feedback on the issues identified in that survey.

From my perspective, they are quite interested in customer retention. This is certainly helping me to feel better about the future of ATX. I hope my sharing here can pass that feeling on to others, especially the skeptics!

Thanks all! This was one of those years where I get ripped off - Father's Day and my Birthday on the same day. As Winnie the Pooh would say: "Oh bother!"

I agree! The Print Manager is the most time-consuming, aggravating bit of crap programming in an otherwise fabulous program. I lose MORE time checking and unchecking those stupid little boxes -- I want the same thing, time and again, but cannot make my own default print set.

We had our first meeting, and they appear to be aware of the Print Manager concerns. I know this is one of the issues I will be constantly reminding them about!

I am surprised there are so few people interested in this opportunity to have their voice for enhancements potentially heard....

I entered a 1099 Misc, but missed that it did not add to the total income....

It is our practice that we go over each return with the client when they pick up and sign. I would hope that an error of this magnitude would have been obvious to the client when you were going over their Schedule C with them.

We had an example this year where we forgot to include their non-1099-MISC income (about an additional $4,000), and the client asked about it when we were going over their return. We had to apologize and correct the return before we concluded the delivery of the final product, receive payment, and e-file. While these kinds of mistakes are rare in our practice, they do happen and this highlights the value of going over the return with the client before they sign for it.

My opinion is this was your mistake, so I would be inclined to pay all interest/penalties, but not the tax liability itself. We do have this stated in our engagement letter.

There exists talk in this community from time to time about whether CCH is committed to the ATX product. I have what I find to be exciting news in regards to this. I would like for you all to know that ATX has formed an "ATX Customer Advisory Board", and I have been asked to participate. I do not know if there are others participating from this community or not.

I have been a long time user of ATX. I know with my software engineering background (from my life in corporate America) and tax preparation experience that I can be a good contributor to this effort. I am excited to have a voice into the program and feel like many of the ideas I have had over the years will finally be heard! My tax preparation experience is in personal returns and predominantly NY state returns. I do not take this commitment lightly and plan to be an active participant. Perhaps there are other long term users like me that have ideas and have been frustrated like me that these ideas were falling on deaf ears. I value the collective wisdom and experience of this community. I would be glad to receive ideas, talk to people, etc. to try to get other people's ideas (especially in areas where I am not well-versed, like business returns, states other than NY, etc.) and bring them forward to the board. Please contact me if interested....

The point is (at least to me) that CCH appears to be demonstrating a commitment to ATX. I think this is great news, and I am personally reassured by this. Our kickoff meeting is in early June. There I will be able to learn the makeup and backgrounds of the other participants and CCH's goals for the group. Please understand that I have signed and am bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) when it comes to planned software enhancements and schedules.

I told them I didn't want to sync for this reason (it has been a few years since the last time I sync'd and it wiped out all my complete tags), and they assured me that would not happen. So I took my chance and it did not wipe out my complete tags. Phew!

I was having the same problem earlier. They suggested synchronizing, and I told them NO WAY! At the time I had 5,245 files in my e-file folder, and did not have hours to wait, nor did I want to lose all the "completed" tags I had inserted.

I had the same problem. Called ATX and was told I needed to run the Synchronize function. That got my acks up to date and I was told would get the flow working again. Give it a try!

I processed a couple of returns last week, to this day the status has not changed, is someone else having this problem? If yes how do you correct it?

Thanks

Hello all! Is there anyone who knows about this ? It is not clear to me where to even begin to look on the IRS web site to get this answer.... Thanks!

Earlier in the season, the box to elect to send the itemized Schedule D transactions was missing from the 8453 and it was my understanding that all transactions had to be listed on the Sch D and Sch D1 continuation pages.

I rolled a return over today that had an 8453 in it from last season, and noticed that the box has returned!

Did something change that we are now allowed to send the consolidated information on the tax return and the specifics attached to an 8453 again this season ??

Thanks!

Earlier in the season, the box to elect to send the itemized Schedule D transactions was missing from the 8453 and it was my understanding that all transactions had to be listed on the Sch D and Sch D1 continuation pages.

I rolled a return over today that had an 8453 in it from last season, and noticed that the box has returned!

Did something change that we are now allowed to send the consolidated information on the tax return and the specifics attached to an 8453 again this season ??

Thanks!

Received this in my email today:

Dear Valued ATX Customer,

As we head into the busy weeks leading up to April 15th, we want to take a few minutes to say thank you for your business this year. We wish you the best as you conclude what we hope has been a successful tax season.

We also look forward to working with you in the future. Watch for your 2010 renewal notice in the mail around April 15th and your e-mail renewal notice around April 19th. This is a little later than in years past so that you can finish up the season without any unnecessary interruption from us.

Again, thank you for being an ATX customer. We appreciate the opportunity to serve you and help you grow your business.

Sincerely,

Jeff Gramlich, CPA, CITP

President

CCH Small Firm Services,

a Wolters Kluwer business

Finally found a good article on this!

Making Work Pay article

Due to past client letter issues with the program, I developed the practice to generate the e-file (for DCN, to find and correct errors, etc.), then add the client letter and print. Adding the client letter after causes the save which moves the e-file back to reject. I have never ended up with a return in the e-file manager in the created state when it really wasn't ready to be e-filed following this simple practice.

I learned today that a portion of the distribution reported on form 1099-Q can be taxable! This was a surprise to me! This is documented on pages 68-70 of Publication 970 (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf). The formulas are rather simple, and I wonder how many more preparers out there were unaware of this as well....

Thanks to everyone for helping me understand the Philadelphia local wages.

This form is only useful if the student is both a nonresident and not working within Philadelphia city limits with Phila tax withheld. Working within the city means tax is withheld and no refund is allowed, period. Persons who live in PA but outside Phila city limits may or may not be subject to a local earned income tax. Those who are typically receive a credit of Phila tax paid up to the amount owed to the resident locality. The remainder is not refundable.

Is this student actually a resident of NY who is temporarily absent from the state for education purposes? If so, is it possible NY will owe her a refund or credit on taxes paid to Phila and/or PA?

Thanks for the reply. I understand the NY credit part....

If I am understanding correctly, there is no place on the PA 40 to report the local tax withheld ? It just gets withheld and is (assumed to be) the correct amount ??

There is also the local return. ATX has a generic local form, but frequently the local district has a blank or fill-in version specific to them at a local web site. They have to be mailed in anyway, so using the local version means you don't miss any tiny twists. I noticed some differences between the ATX local generic and the from-their-site local specific forms.

Thanks - can you provide a pointer (either URL or merely a suggestion on where to start and send me on my own way) on where to obtain the PA local form ?