Chowdahead

Thanks!

I was under the impression that forms claiming education credits (American Opp. Credit or Lifetime Learning Credit) or the Tuition & Fees deductions were being delayed? I have a return containing 8863 and I am not seeing an message regarding the e-file delay or anything?

Was I mistaken or has the delay been lifted?

I generally just tell clients no, because it varies by bank. I've seen success with Bank of America, but that was last year and this is this year, so who knows if the rules have changed.

Anyone offering these? Unfortunately, I could not make it to any of their webinars so I couldn't ask some questions. My interest was peaked yesterday when a client of mine received a letter of invitation to the IRS Debit Card trial program.

Some questions on the MoneyWise porgram:

1. Am I required to sign up separately with ATX through a formal process or do I just check the box and tab in the E-File Info page?

2. Are the daily max withdrawals raised during tax season. That's one aspect of the IRS card I thought was intriguing. The normal max withdrawal for the IRS card is $400 per day. But during tax season (until May) the max daily ATM withdrawal fee is $3,000. I'm wondering if the Moneywise card offered the same?

As far as the IRS card... I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate it....

The preparer may not be actually filing/transmitting them yet. They may simply be entering all available information and providing the client (your employee) with a loan based on that estimated return.....with a crazy high interest rate or fee, no doubt.

I doubt it because you don't need a Payer ID# just to a calculation. But you do need it to e-file. A lot of people are desperate for money this year it seems. I have been getting alot more calls about the last pay stub. Remains to be seen whether or not my overall business will be down because these people will go to someone willing to do it.

I heard a radio add for a place called something like Fast Tax Refunds or something (can't remember the name but the ad said 'hundreds of locations nationwide). The ad said, "No W-2 yet? Come on in! We can download most W-2's online!"

Oh yeah? I don't find that many companies do this, except banks and huge corporations.

I am looking at the 1040 Express Answers book sent to me by ATX and in the table titled "Who Must File a Return in 2010", the Filing Status of "Single, if may be claimed on another return" is listed as $5,400 +$300.

1. What is the $300?

2. What is the income limit for someone being claimed as a dependent on a filer's return? I have lots of parents who make $20K-$30K and have teenage kids who made $6-7k working part-time. Is there a limit for the exemption or Earned Income Credit?

According to the IRS Tax Refund schedule, e-files transmitted and accepted between Feb. 10-17 by 11am will all be deposited on Feb. 25 anyway, so it would make no sense to try to e-file on Feb. 14. Better to wait a day or two and allow the rush to subside.

Isn't this kind of ridiculous? So essentially most homeowners must wait until Feb. 14 correct?

I get about 5 phone calls per day from people asking if the can file using their last pay stub. I say no and they hang up. I'm sure eventually they find somewhere that is doing it.

You are correct all states now go seperately. Hold the state. When the federal is accepted you will be asked if you want to release the state. You can either say yes to this prompt or just release it manually. Then you can transmit the state return. It is one more step...but on the other hand, if the Federal is rejected, you will not automatically have a rejected state as in the past (as long as you wait until fed is accepted to transmit the state). I also was surprised at this change and do not recall reading about it anywhere

I think I dismissed that dialog box because last year I usually sent both the federal and state together, because the state was piggybacked. So if there was an error on the federal (SSN etc) the state would be rejected as well.

But now that I read this, it seems that the state will not be rejected in case there is an error. And since my state doesn't seem to verify against the SSN database to accept the e-file, the client will most likely get a letter asking for a copy of the SSN card to make the correction.

So how do I a activate this dialog box again? So when the federal is accepted, the program will automatically notify me that I can send the state? If not, I can see a logistical nightmare dealing with this.

Thanks for getting clarification on that. I was about to call Support and rant.

Form should be approved Feb. 18

This is precisely what the new Western Union MoneyWise Prepaid MasterCard is for. This and fee collect, no need for "bank products" for unbanked customers.

I plan on attending one of the remaining webinars this week. My main concern about the prepaid mastercard are

1. Since the card is sent to the taxpayer, I am worried about dealing with claims for lost/stolen cards and fraud. if the card was sent to me, and I handed it directly to the client, it would be more attractive.

2. Although RACs have high fees, what are the options for people who want to access all the cash at once? ATMs limit transactions to $500 per day right? What is the ATM fee the client must pay per transaction?

One benefit I believe I read is that these prepaid cards may be offered even if the preparer is using bank products. Is this accurate?

This is why I dumped the bank products this season and opted to go with Fee Collect and the Western Union Prepaid MasterCard. I never did RALs and only had the bank products so I could collect my fees from their refund and print checks for the few clients who needed that. Now with the Western Union card, I don't need checks and Fee Collect can handle collecting my fees, all for a lower cost for my clients.

I finally got through to ATX Support and verified, multiple times, that the Transmitter Fee will still be $10 this year.

I am really on the fence with Fee Collect vs. RAC. I processed about 140 bank products last year, about 90 of which were printed checks. These are people who just don't have bank accounts, for one reason or another. Usually, it's because they owe a bank money due to an overdrawn account or uncollected overdraft fees. Once they owe one bank, they can't open an account in nearly any bank. So obviously, these are also the people least likely to pay if I bill them.

So, if I take the chance and offer Fee Collect, which I love because it's cheap, I take the risk of losing a lot of these unbanked customers.

By the way, there is a very lively discussion going on in the comments in this recent article on MSNBC about RALS:

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/01/tax-refund-loans-gone-replaced-by-other-bad-products.html

I'm seriously considering signing up for FeeCollect because of these ridiculously high fees. My only problem is that I can't get through to ATX because of the weather.

Does anyone know if it's too late to sign up for FeeCollect? And If I already signed up for a Bank Product, can I rescind it and offer Fee Collect instead?

According to ATX it's $21.00. $4 goes to the preparer & they keep the rest. Sounds like a pretty good shake down huh?

Eli

Where did you get the info from, customer service or the ATC Support Web Site? So this means that, right out the gate, any client looking for an Electronic Refund Transfer or Check will be paying:

$32 account setup fee (sbbtg)

+$21 bank technology fee (sbbtg)

+$21 transmitter fee (atx)

=$74 total fees, BEFORE any preparer fees!? This is getting absolutely ridiculous.

Is ATX still charging $15 for fee collect for direct deposit? Do they also charge the Transmitter fee on top of that as well.

Has anyone here determined what the ATX Transmitter Add-On fee will be for bank products this year? Last year it was $10.00 from ATX. Is it the same?

I just noticed that Santa Barbara raised their amount to $21.00, plus the $32 account handling fee. :angry:

I have used inkjetsuperstore.com for about 4 years and I have been very happy with them.

Only thing is that they ship out of California, so if you are on the East Coast, ORDER EARLY, so you can get it within 2 weeks on the East Coast with their $5 shipping, no matter how large the order is.

I didn't didn't a pad either and I reordered in August!

I did the webinar yesterday, and you are right, this product is just one more step to offering what the big dogs offer. Even though all of my clients have their own checking accounts that their refund can be deposited in, you never know if you will get a new client that is unbanked!

I saw this as well. My concern is that there will always be a small percentage of people whose cards get lost in the mail or stolen. That will be a hassle to deal with. Even worse if someone has used the card, since a claim has to be filed with Mastercard etc. Who knows how long that will take.

At least with the printed checks, you would give the check to the person directly in most cases, eliminating that problem. I wish they allowed the option to have the cards mailed to the tax office.

I also noticed there is a fee for ATM withdrawals. Something like $2-3, plus perhaps whatever the ATM owner charges. Might not seem like a lot, but since you can only withdraw $500.00 per day, someone with a sizable refund of $4000.00 for example, would be looking at 10 trips to the ATM over 10 days with $20-$50 in bank fees.

I think I'll just stick to checks. Might be a small hassle, but at least I usually print them in bulk. I see less and less checks every year anyway since most people have accounts.

One question I have is that in the promo material, it appeared as if this would be integrated as an option into ATX, regardless as to whether we used a Bank or not. So even if I use SBBT for ERCs/ERTs, I could still offer Western Union cards. Is this accurate?

Which package are you looking at? The two on the low end both discount the fee if you use the card reader and swipe instead of entering the card number, but the only thing I saw about the card reader was on the lowest package, and it cost $69.95.

http://payments.intuit.com/products/online-credit-card-processing.jsp

Service

Cost

Discount rate for Visa, MasterCard and Discover® Network

Card-swiped: 1.90%3

Key-entered: 2.90%4

Monthly service

$12.95

Per-authorization fee

$0.30

Monthly Minimum fee

None

One-time set-up fee

None

Cancellation fee

None

Accepting credit cards is a necessary evil nowadays. I've been looking at Intuit's service http://payments.intuit.com/?xcid=int_intm_IPS_Home_nav_wfm_A

It's all online. No cumbersome POS card reader printer/machine. Those things are antiquated. Intuit even gives you a small swipe reader for quick entry. Fees seem reasonable. No contract.

This was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a while ago. Stewart had a blast with this one.

http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0,,id=109646,00.html

taxbilly

Taxbilly, thanks but your link is dead. No longer exists on the IRS site. Do you know the article number?

Over the past year I have received a solicitation from ATX regarding a product they sell to instantly obtain taxpayer transcripts. Currently, whenever I have a customer who needs a transcript, I generate a 4506-T, have them sign it, and mail it or fax it to the IRS. It typically takes from 1-4 weeks to receive the transcript from the IRS.

The ATX product seems convenient, but it's expensive. Something like $170 a year. I had read that there was a way from Preparer's to obtain transcripts instantly through their E-Services account on the IRS website. But I can't find it for the life of me.

Does any one have any experience with with the ATX product or with the E-Services method through the IRS for obtaining official transcripts?