JohnH

I think they are the same thing - just depends on your state. Here's a prety good discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_contract

Marilyn: Good to hear everything worked out OK. At least now you're prepared if it happens again. Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend, and it is important for us remember all those military heroes who sacrificed in the past and continue to do so every day. We owe all of them a debt that can never be fully repaid.

Thanks. I hadn't noticed that.

They will probably get a bill with an NSF penalty & maybe some interest added (but I'm not really sure about the interest). I think they will get credit for the payment whenever good funds are remitted. Haven't seen one like this in a long time, but I'm pretty sure the bounced check won't invalidate the extension, since technically no payment is even required for the extension to be valid.

Sounds like your friend learned the most important thing about United Way. It's mainly an enterprise about business politics with secondary charitable purposes.

I agree with jainen. IRS told him to concentrate on the prior years because they don't like old stuff lying around and like all bill collectors they know that the older something gets, the harder it becomes to collect. They don't mention that the client essentially doubles up on penalties by doing it this way. Of course, he may just be telling you what pops into his mind (unless you heard the conversation yourself). I've found that people who talk with the IRS themselves often have very selective memories. The best cash management technique would be to get compliant on the current year and try for a payment plan for all the old liablities. In the long run, he will pay less in penalties (although the interest will be roughly the same), and he can get in the habit of paying on time. The problem with this approach is that if he habitually pays only when the wolf is at the door, then an organized approach like this won't do him any good either. So you have to decide at some point if any solution will work for him. Money he pays to Holmes could be much better spent paying down his tax liability and paying you to help him get compliant. The advice to form an LLC or a corp won't help him very much form a tax standpoint. There may be lots of general business liability issues that make it desirable, but if he just chronically delays paying his taxes, then another entity will just give him more opportunity to conveniently get "confused". This type of situation could cause him to dig an even deeper hole and expose himself to an overlapping set of penalties if he does things in exactly the wrong way.

Well that's easy for you to say, but I'm finding that monitors just don't last all that long. It's getting expensive to keep replacing them every week or so. After a few days all the White-Out already makes them hard to read, and now you're telling me to make a bigger mess with rubber stamps.

Thanks Jack. I found that my printers all have that capability as well. I tried jainen's approach, but every time I try to attach the rubber stamp to an email, it falls off the keyboard into the floor.

I don't know how to mark a return "Draft" other than to write the words on each page & scan it. If there's a way within ATX, I'd like to know as well. But if you want to watermark each page as "Client Copy", then all you need to do is select "Print", select "Preferences" from within the Print Manager, and under the "Print" tab on the left hand side, be sure that "Print Watermark on Client Copy" is selected. Then under "Options" you select "Client Copy". This will display a second column and you can check the appropriate forms/pages you want to print. Each page will have "Client Copy" watermarked across its face.

I know TaxSlayer may be a bit of a nuisance to some of us, but I think they have the best marketing program of any software provider out there. I admire their tenacity. It's low-key but persistent; a difficult balance to maintain when marketing to professionals. I've evaluated their software and from what I've seen they would probably be just below Drake in my order of choices if I ever left ATX. It isn't likely to happen, but if they developed a true forms-based product they'd probably jump ahead of Drake. They keep themselves especially well-positioned to pick off tax preparers who are disgruntled with their current provider. They seem to be anticipating that sort of thing happening on a wholesale basis in the future. Anyone besides me wonder why they think that way...?

Too much information.

Since time is an important issue for you, it might be a good idea to try and accelerate the date for the biopsy. If you explain the situation, they may be able to accommodate you by squeezing you in earlier. You might also try to get on a "wait list" in case they have a cancellation. I've had a couple of medical situations in which I'd work out arrangements with the appointments secretary to call them every morning just to ask if they had a cancellation for that day. (In one case I would just delay eating until I had made the call). The last thing you need is a tight schedule for making an important decision like this, so getting an earlier answer might take some pressure off. And hope all goes well with your biopsy.

Kea: I don't have a specific agent or company recommendation, but I want to make a general suggestion. I've been concerned for the past couple of years that my wife's insurance carrier might drop spousal coverage altogether (she's a retired NC employee), so this subject has been on my radar screen for quite a while. If I ever have to make the leap, I'm leaning in the direction of a Health Savings Account rather than traditional insurance. There's still the matter of selecting a good carrier for the Major Medical portion, but as fo0r the overall concept the HSA seems to be a good alternative to traditional coverage since an individual or small group really doesn't have any leverage with the insurance companies.

Jack: I don't know why you would say that. After all, Turbo Tax did a fine job for the current Treasury Secretary. It even got him off the hook for penalties.

Would that potentially create any sort of privacy issue? :)

I agree completely. The discounts offered aren't worth the risks associated with renewing early, especially since most of the vendors are clearly in the mode of doing what's best for them without any regard for how it impacts their customers. They've adopted the business model of the banks - just keep getting bigger and don't worry too much about the fallout. It's easy enough to mouth the right words in carefully contructed language during the early part of the transition and then make your most egregious cost-cutting & reduction-of-service moves after the majority of your customers have been lulled to sleep. Most will stay, some will leave, and some we will get back in the next acquisition. In the end it all evens out.

I think this would fit on a post card: Dear Clients: The administration meant well, but frankly they don't really know what they're doing. The way this credit is being handled is a hopeless mess for some of you. Be prepared to pay next year, unless you want to pay me as much to figure out the correct withholding as I normally charge to prepare your return. And remember that no matter how you fare in 2009, you will definitely be paying more in the coming years. This will result from a combination of: 1) Increased tax rates, or 2) Record-setting inflation resulting from irresponsible & irrational government spending.

Sometimes you just have to tell the client the system may not meet their definition of fair, but it is what it is and there's nothing to be done about it. If they are so irrational that they can't accept that simple fact, then maybe you're better off without them wasting your time.

I'd be inclined to do it the IRS way. The small P&I reduction for the May payment won't be worth the hassle if IRS fails to credit the payment properly. Wait until the first notice arrives before making a payment, so IRS will have a piece of paperwork to match up with the check. The client can always send MORE with the June payment (even double up on it), if they choose to do so.

To expand the question a bit, does IRS even compare balance sheet entries year-over-year? I don't think so because I've seen returns with some pretty big discrepancies between the ending balance sheet for the return actually filed in the prior year and the beginning amounts for the return filed in a subsequent year. So I don't think the question would ever come up unless there was an audit, and then you could probably just trot out the old "de minimis" argument (provided it's true, of course).

Maybe now you'll stay away from those sites you shouldn't be viewing.. Seriously, glad you got it resolved - it could happen to any of us with just an inadvertent click of the mouse at the wrong time.

Thanks Eric. That's pretty neat. Does it matter how far away I stand when looking at the chart? (I think it's telling me my vision is 20/80)

Probably one of those clients who just wanted to "get it done" without thinking through the consequences. Then they come back expecting the preparer to straighten out their mess after they're past the point of no return.

Margaret: I was referring to getting burned in the larger context - the overarching principles of the company under CCH management. Not to keep rehashing old grudges, but they clearly told us something about their new business philosophy when they yanked the original community at the worst possible moment without any regard for their loyal users. The clear message was they intended to do what was in their best interests regardless of how it impacted their customers - they told us that with both their words and their deeds. So far, that's the only major hiccup as far as I'm concerned, but we clearly know what & whom we are dealing with. I follow the old Russian proverb that says when dancing with a bear, keep your knife handy. For me, that means I'm not making any type of commitment until I'm sure the product and service meets my needs for the upcoming year. I'll pay extra to know that's the case. As long as their interests and mine coincide I'll be a customer. But if we get to the point that their business doesn't serve my needs in terms of price, service, quality, etc, then I'll move on without ever looking back.

What's the rush? One never know what ugly surprises any software vendor could toss out at the last minute. It isn't as though we all haven't been burned before on one way or another, so I think it's wise to wait until the last minute to buy any tax software in this environment. The relatively small discounts they offer for buying early just aren't worth the risk.