HV Ken

That's a great idea Jack, and I like that practice. Thanks for sharing!

I submitted a bug report, and the response I received is that of their thousands of users, I am the ONLY ONE that has complained about its removal. There is strength in numbers, so help the cause!

They also took away the "Total" on the Forms Statement tab, which we always used to help in our return pricing. This has impacted my productivity as I now have to flop back and forth between that page and the Invoice tab as I make charge adjustments. For one return it is a minor nuisance - for hundreds of returns it becomes significant. When I contacted support, I was told this was a deliberate design decision made by the development team. I wish when they are going to change the functionality they would somehow let the user community know so we can chime in about proposed changes and perhaps get some of their ideas for improvement to be stopped!

The "value" error usually indicates a data entry problem in a blue field. The field you reference is a bunny to the billing invoice. Follow the bunny and see if the blue field you end up at has an error in it.

Hi - I don't recall your other posts on Document Manager, and I am a new user of it (plus Scan & Fill which IMHO is not ready for prime time yet) this year. Would you mind summarizing your issues with Document Manager?

Yes, as I discovered last night, Scenario 2 was an exact match. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction jainen!

From jainen's reference, it led me to another page (http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=206294,00.html), where I found this: S2. Taxpayer A is a single first-time home buyer. Taxpayer B (parent) cosigns for A and does not qualify. Both names are on the mortgage. Can Taxpayer A claim the credit and, if so, how much? A. Yes. Taxpayer B is not a first-time homebuyer and cannot claim any portion of the credit, but A may claim the entire credit ($7,500 for purchase in 2008; $8,000 for purchase in 2009), if the home was purchased as Taxpayer A's primary residence.

This is a very intriguing suggestion. Gonna have to marinate on this one. Thanks!

Are you suggesting this for the MFS case, when the instuctions clearly indicate the credit is capped at $4000 ?

jainen, thanks for the reference, and the answer you cite is based on the question: Q. How does the allocation provision work when unmarried taxpayers purchase a home together and both qualify for the first-time homebuyer credit under different tests? That is not the case here. The parents do not qualify for the credit, which would negate the "and" clause. The waters remain murky in my mind!

Good question - will ask that of the agent in the morning. Thanks.

When I read the instuctions, doesn't that only apply in the case of married taxpayers ?

We did pose that option to SP. SP is contending the issues causing her to be garnished, so prefers to not have any money to be going towards the obligation. Even so, one question I still have is: if her name is nowhere to be found on the paperwork, can she even apply for the other $4000 of the credit ? When the HUD statement is attached and mailed in, her name won't be on it.

They file separate because she has outstanding obligations and the MFJ refund would be garnished (no need to mention injured or innocent spouse here). They just bought the house together less than one month ago!!!!

Are you saying that the W2 TP received shows both states and the income allocated equally between the two states, such that when added together they equal the federal amount ? I know what Don says about how the W2 is supposed to look, but some of the ones I have seen are done as I stated above. Perhaps it would help if we knew exactly how the state portion of the W2 was filled in....

Thanks - but not sure why you think divorce is in the air....

Perhaps I missed the obvious on page 2 of the instructions: First-time homebuyer. Generally, the credit is the smaller of • $8,000 ($4,000 if married filing separately), or I suppose this clearly trumps any other part of my question....

Got a call from a realator today that I network with in BNI. He is working with a client with the following scenario: Single TP purchasing first home. Cannot qualify for mortgage alone, so parents are doing the real estate equivalent of co-signing for the loan (I forget the technical real estate term, but it is not called co-signing). Parents will *not* be living in the home, and TP will be handling all the payments. The parents involvement is solely for qualification to obtain the mortgage. Agent is concerned that having the parents name on the paperwork will impact the TP ability to either qualify for the credit or reduce the amount of the credit TP would be eligible for. The numbers are such that the full $8000 credit would apply. Reading the instructions for Form 5405 (all 4 pages), it is not clear to me what the impact this scenario would create. Anyone care to share your thoughts on this ?

TP and SP file Married Filing Separate. They have been married for many years and have rented until now (>3 years). TP purchased home 1/13/10 for ~250,000. TP AGI is ~55,000. SP has no income from any possible conceivable source and will not be filing a return (jainen - did I miss any assumptions here?). All paperwork for the house, mortgage, etc. is solely in the name of the TP. SP name is nowhere to be found on it. I am finding the instructions for Form 5405 to be a little confusing. They state: If married individuals buy a main home and do not claim the credit on a joint return, they can also allocate the credit between them using any reasonable method. A reasonable method is any method that does not allocate all or a part of the credit to a co-owner who is not eligible to claim that part of the credit. For married taxpayers filing separate returns, the amount of the credit allocated to each spouse cannot exceed the smaller of (a) the amount on line 3 or (b ) the excess of line 2 over the amount allocated to the other spouse on the other spouse’s Form 5405, line 4. Can I conclude that it would be reasonable for the TP to therefore claim the full $8000 credit ? Or am I missing something ?

It is also part of the paperless office initiative.................

So I decided to give Scan & Fill a try for this tax season. Here are my initial impressions: Almost 90% of all W2s scanned have required minor modifications before I could import from S&F into ATX. About 20% of the W2s have not "scanned" at all. So far, I find that it is taking me more time than saving me time. I think the concept is great and it is a step in the right direction. I am hopeful that the program will continue to improve and become an asset - I just don't think it is quite ready for prime time yet.... I am liking the Document Manager piece of the equation.... Anyone else using it and have impressions to share???

Finally got it to work. Here are the steps I followed. I am hoping either someone can suggest a better way, or at least what I found will help someone else! This is for etrade. Trading & Portfolios tab Portfolios Gains & Losses tab You will be in "Realized Gains/Losses". Set the Start Date and End Date for tax year, or use the Tax Year box; submit Click on Download and save to file (File-1). This will be a worksheet format. Open this file (File-1) in excel. It will appear as a comma-delimited file, with each row being complete in one column. Save this as a text file (File-2). Take this file (File-2) into notepad and remove the double quotes that are at the front and end of each line. Save File-2. Enter Excel, open a new workbook and import File-2. Data -> Import External Data -> Import Data and select the text version. Now you are in the Text Import Wizard - Step 1 of 3. click next to Step 2 of 3. Change the Delimiters from Tab to Comma Next; Finish Save as csv file voila! you now have an excel file you can read in the new Import Schedule D Data process. Once I figured this out, I can do this in less than 5 minutes. I used this to import a client who had 74 trades. Now that I have this down, it will go much smoother. There just must be a way to eliminate some of these steps, but I am already better than I was before! YMMV

Has anyone been able to import Schedule D data from a csv file? I have a csv file, but when it comes up in the menu to allocate the columns, all the data is placed into one column. I suspect my csv file is not formatted properly, but can't figure it out. Have been on with customer "support" for over 30 minutes now. The person I am working with has no idea about this function but I can't get past her to someone who actually knows something.... I'd like to hear from someone who had success and maybe see what a working csv file looks like. Thanks!

I finally found it! http://atxinctv.com/presentation.asp

Last month, I stumbled across ATX TV and actually found some of the topics to be useful and helpful. Now I can't seem to find it anywhere on the myatx web site. Does anyone have a link (url) for ATX TV ? Thanks!