Lion EA

I had a couple of SE artists who were talked into HDHPs with HSAs. They paid their health insurance premiums and their medical bills as always, never contributing to their HSAs !! When I worked with them to show them how to save taxes, they both decided it was much bother to contribute to their HSAs and to pay medical bills out of their HSAs, even with their HSA debit cards. I have way too many artists as clients.

Well, my first glitch in seven years with ProSystem fx. The return says TN has qualified for e-filing. But, when I call CCH (by the way, they answer the phone immediately for Pro fx !!) they tell me no e-filing for that TN form. Gotta email the daddy back to tell him I'm mailing them a TN return to sign and mail to TN.

Oh oh. My software said he was qualified to efile TN. If I have to mail it to client, I'd better get on the stick. And, yes, this is a kid with dividends on investment income contributed by his grandfather who's my friend in CT.

I totally forgot about SE when I was typing, just thinking about the HDHP and HSA. Yes, she should use health insurance premiums as SE insurance, medical, dental, prescription, vision. Yes she should take an adjustment on 1040 for HSA contributions. 8889 will calculate to whatever it does (my drugstore rang up a $3 greeting card on my HSA debit card, even though I'd handed them a five to pay for it separately!). And, 5329 if excess contributions. And, thank you, JKL, for sharing your knowledge. These are so much paperwork, but I'm getting more and more of them, including my own husband.

Does TN require a separate signature form from the federal Form 8879? CT does not; NY does; etc.; so thought I'd better ask. I don't see anything comparable to Form 8879 in the TN section of my software.

If she used the HSA to pay the expenses or reimbursed herself from the HSA to cover qualified medical expenses, then it's probably already included in her Distribution. You cannot pay medical insurance premiums with HSA funds, but you can pay some other premiums, such as long term care. Other health expenses paid with after tax dollars, not with an HSA or via her HDHP coverage, go on Schedule A. You'll need to ask her how much her HSA paid for health care, hopefully the same amount as the distribution.

It snowed yesterday, so snow on the ground in CT.

ProSystem fx!

Years ago when I started at a Block store-front office, I had an older couple (retired professor and retired teacher) arrive in nice businesswear, hand me their materials separately, and proceed to read their library books for an hour or more while I prepared their returns. They would thank me graciously, pay their bill, and leave with their payment vouchers. One year I discovered from an IRS letter in their materials that they had not been paying the IRS and CT in a timely manner. They'd never told me nor asked my advice. But at least I finally found out so we could discuss withholding, ES, etc.

Conversation; we old people are lonely!

Sorry, I should've realized. Some were long-time holdouts, so I fell for your joke!

Doubt if anyone at ATX ever looks at this unofficial forum.

I met my psychiatrist during his second marriage, still going strong. But he lost his father and his twenty-something son a few months apart a year ago, so I'm someone he doesn't have to counsel, can just be a grieving parent/son.

Definitely. In fact, my January crowd is to recalculate ES for changes, so listening to good and bad news then too. And, don't forget marriage counseling for those couples who approach money differently (and isn't that most of them?!). And, family counseling when the child gets their first job or goes to college or elderly parents move in. I too have a psychiatrist client and a couple of social workers. It's all about relationships.

Once you hit about 200 returns, the unlimited price may be better and won't increase as your number of returns increases. If your average fee is $500 and you could do 26 more returns with ProSystem fx than with ATX -- probably not a stretch to go from 2,900 to 2,926 -- then it will have paid for itself in money alone, not even taking into account stress, sleep, etc. My first year with Profx, I was so thrilled with support that I didn't regret the price. But the last weekend of the season with Tax Day coming up on Monday, I had nine returns left: a husband/wife out-of-state partnership, their joint return with SE wife and two states, two sons' returns, kiddy tax, 300 pages of gain/loss, plus another family with a joint return with two states, two sons, kiddy tax, two trusts for the sons, and more gain/loss They were clients I'd had before Profx, so I was used to spending about five days on those returns, especially with all the proofreading I needed to do that late in the season when I'm tired. I was dreading calling one of the families, maybe both of the families, to say I was putting their returns on extension. But, I clicked a button to import K-1s, clicked a button to import gain/loss, and clicked a button to do kiddy tax; strong diagnostics helped me proofread, and all had flowed correctly. I was done by 2 a.m. after one day! I was so excited that I woke up my husband to tell him. He of course had no idea what I was talking about, but he did say that my software just paid for itself.

And, so did I -- until I demo-ed every software out there at the time. Profx is not ATX. Just sayin'.

By the way, when I saw your topic I thought YOU were burned out. I was actually happy that it was your client with an actual fire (things can be recovered; people cannot) and not you under extreme stress with your health at risk. And, this is stress that you can hand back to your clients to solve. Give them a check list of all the good suggestions above, set them to work, and file an extension for now.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from this Irish (and a few other things) lass!

Just means that even if the semester starts after the beginning of January and ends early in May, he was still a student for any part of each of five months. Lawyers write this stuff, right?

I haven't done one in a long time. But, you keep the W-2s so it would make sense to keep the signed 4852...

So, Pacun, how do you feel a year later about e-filing? (Not about ATX.)

But a different division with it's own staff. Been there, done that! I was going to use ATX when I went out on my own as I already knew it for entities in my old job. That was the year ATX closed their message board two weeks before Tax Day. I swore I'd never buy a CCH product. Shopped around and chose Intuit's Proseries, but it wasn't going to handle my more complex returns. While I looked at adding Intuit's Lacerte, thought maybe I should check out Ultra Tax and ProSystem fx also if I was going to spend that kind of money. Those latter two were better than Lacerte, and I chose ProSystem fx for their features and support. Never regretted my decision. Happy ProSystem fx customer since the 2007 season.

I had a colleague who charged an extra 50% for a rush job! I stay pretty firm with preparing returns in the order received and putting clients on extension after a certain date (which is earlier this year due to Congress...but I won't rant). But, when a client asks for a rush job and I comply, I do add a Rush Fee right on the invoice, and it varies depending on the amount of my work, how fast they need it, and the good old PITA factor. I've never added less than $50 or $100, and depending on how large their invoice would be without the Rush Fee, I've added some pretty large Rush Fees. I want them to feel some pain for their lateness and to reimburse me for my pain (even if it wasn't more work, just different timing, I have to field the phone calls from all my other clients, calm them down about not completing their returns yet). I've never gone as high as my colleague's 50%, but I have charged 10%, 20%, 25%, whatever feels right to me at the time. I want it to be big enough that it stands out on their bill.

The set-up fee is less ($42?) if done online.

He's in the business of selling houses. The houses are inventory.