JohnH

For the past 4-5 days, I've been experiencing lots of problems navigating online. Sometimes I'll need to click on a link 2 or 3 times to get it to connect - other times it just won't connect at all. I get errror messages saying IE can't find the site, although I know it's a valid site. Just curious if anyone else is seeing this. I'm using Internet Explorer for browsing and AT&T for my email. This is happening on two different computers - one running XP and the other running Vista.

Sometimes it's easy to over-think this sort of situation, especially if the person asking for the support is a family member or someone else you know personally. Trying to discern the purity of the other person's motives can get you into a real moral quandry. But keep in mind that it's very common for many organizations to require their full-time or part-time missionaries to raise their own support. However, as has already been mentioned, I'd be inclined to check out the sponsoring organization as a matter of good stewardship. If they are a legitimate religious organization, if their financial info seems reasonable and responsible, and if you agree with the overall mission of the organization, then I think it's perfectly acceptable to make the donation & take the deduction. If the organization fails any of those stewardship & accountability tests, then I wouldn't contribute no matter who is doing the asking. One excellent place to start would be the ECFA. http://www.ecfa.org/

The obvious question is "Are you saving the data when you close the return?", but I'm sure you've eliminated that one or else you'd be having other problems.

--> Now, all of this is just my comments. <--- Are you hinting that I can't claim I relied upon this advice if I get penalized because I agree with it? Just want to be sure I understand...

Once they have your SSN, there's nothing you can do to protect your SSN from parents who report the wrong amounts. You can, however, keep good records to show how much income you received and report it properly on your tax return, which is the only thing you are responsible for doing in this situation anyhow.

When I see a client pull a stunt like this, it brings to mind the old WC Fields line: "You can't cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump."

Good one, KC. May I add another? A woman comes home to find her husband sitting on the sofa in tears. She sits down beside him and says "This is so sweet of you to remember our 25th anniversary. I've been emotional about it all day myself". He replies, "Yes, I am pretty emotional. Your father showed up at my home 25 years ago with a shotgun and told me that either we were getting married that day or somebody was going to die. You know, if I'd managed to get the gun away and kill him, then with time off for good behavior I'd probably be getting out of prison today."

Congratulations. Grandchildren really do alter your outlook on life.

All you ever wanted to know about the "A-Team"... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_A-Team

Tom: I'm still on the fence and will probably stay with ATX barring any surprises between now and the end of the year (when I will actually make the purchase). But from what I have seen of Drake I would almost certainly switch to them if ATX/CCH drives me away. They have a good product at a reasonable price, and the support appears to be fantastic. Their users are a very loyal bunch, which says a lot about the product. If you've decided to make the change, I think you've made an excellent choice in Drake. But don't let your choice of software keep you off this forum - I think the concensus is that we all can derive much from this forum regardless of the software we use. After all, nobody controls this forum other than the participants - that's what makes it unique.

The article made a big deal out of passive solar sources. Now if someone can just invent a skylight that won't start leaking after 2-3 years, they may be onto something.

---> I can't help it. Both the question and the answer were clearly speculative, written in future tense about something that everyone knows has not been approved yet. <---- All this talk about verb tenses reminds me of the guy who jumps into a cab in Boston and asks "Do you know where I can get scrod?" The cabbie replied, "Buddy, I've heard that question hundreds of times, but you're the first person to ever use the pluperfect subjunctive." (Sorry, I can't help it either.)

You gotta have a thick skin if you walk onto this part of the playground.

Micro-managing other people's lives is a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. After all, the ignorant masses really don't know what's in their best interest and they need regular input from the elites just to get through the day. I think the CA legislators are doing the best they can, although they have plenty of competition from their counterparts in Washington.

Interesting that you should mention that. I had a conversation with him a couple of years back about discussing these things beforehand (after he got burned on another investment). He replied that he trusts his financial advisor to give him good investment advice and he trusts me to handle his tax matters, and he didn't really see any reason to mix the two. I considered telling him to go somewhere else at the time, and your reply reinforces the wisdom of that initial impulse. I think we will have that conversation this week. It occurs to me that you & he might get along well together - would you be interested in my giving him your contact info?

I'm wondering if anyone has seen this sort of correspondence from an IRA custodian. The client has an IRA which sends a Form 1065 K-1 to the trustee. The trustee then sends the K-1 to the client with a letter saying that UBTI has been reported on the K-1 and that if UBTI exceeds $1,000 the TAXPAYER must obtain a Fed ID# and prepare a 990-T. The 990-T is then to be sent to the trustee, who will pay the tax from the IRA and charge the taxpayer a processing fee for their trouble. I thought most trustees handled this filing, rather than tossing it back to the customer. Before I tell this client to either find a sensible IRA trustee or else find another preparer interested in fooling with this nonsense, I'd like to ask if anyone on this forum has encountered a similar situation or is it becoming more common and I need to get up to speed on it.

You should start planning now by gradually working more sprouts, grains, berries, yogurt, tofu, & various types of roughage into your diet. It will require months to make the transition, but by next tax season your digestive system will have adjusted somewhat. (I specifically left fruits & nuts off the list because they are in short supply - most of them are serving in your legislature.)

I'd expect nothing but laughter if I tried to use the word "intellectual" and me in the same sentence, but just the same it's woth a shot. So here's the deal. I have some other ideas that I'll share with you come next January. But you have to pay me for them now and you only have 30 days after you pay to cancel, even though you don't yet know if they will work as advertised. I'll give you a password that you have to change every 45 days and I'll give you access to a forum to discuss those ideas, but I'll keep you guessing about whether or not I may cancel the forum if it suits me. I also have another set of ideas that cost a whole lot more and I may or may not merge the two at sometime in the future, but I'll keep you guessing about whether or not I'm actually going to do that. All the while I'll pepper you with emails & phone calls telling you how important you are to me, but I'll go ahead & admit that my response time may not be so good, especially during the busy tax season. For the hext 30 days I'll give you a puny discount to go ahead & sign up now, but then if I don't get enough response I may extend the discount to others just to get you really ticked off. How's my business model so far - do you think anyone will actually go for this scheme?

Depends on the level of PITA the client achieves. Basic PITA is usually a 25% surcharge. Moderate PITA warrants about 40%. Extraordinary PTA can range from 60% to 120%, and billing is usually in 20-minute minimum billing units, even for a 2-minute phone call. Anything over that is just "Get lost, you're such a flake that you ain't worth the trouble at any price", although it's usually stated in terms of "We're reorganizing the way we operate our practice and we've realized that your situation is so unique that we don't think we can do the best job for you any longer." There are just general guidelines - your situation may vary.

You might want to tell them that if they cooperate in setting things up properly going forward, that might be of some help to them if the past sins ever come up in a future audit. I also agree with jainen concerning the past preparer. If he was really good and they want to continue following his advice, why are they changing? I always want a good answer to that question with a new prospective client who has an existing business. Somebody better have died, moved, retired, etc. One excuse that I always find suspicious is "He raised his fees." After all, isn't that the main way we get rid of most of our PITA clients?

Lion Absolutely no. I would never pay P&I on a client who gets info to me at the last minute and we have to file an extension & then find out later there was "more to the story". That's a totally different animal. Extensions are a result of their not planning far enough in advance to give you time to do the return, so they just need to live with the result as a cost of the convenience of doing things at the last minute. I've had THAT conversation with a few clients over the years, and my answer is always the same - if it's so important to you then we should have been talking about this back in February. In the rare case in which I should have known about something that was clearly visible or was on a prior year's return and I missed it when filing the extension I might make an exception, but that would be rare indeed. I also had a guy one year who quibbled over the June & July P&I - he said I should have been able to get the return done in May even with the extension. I told him to pay up & forget it - my schedule is still up to me and he always had the option to take it to HR or JH & sit in their waiting room for a few hours. Apparently he thought his time was more valuable than that and I agreed with him - so is mine. Anyhow, the P&I for FTP isn't such a big deal even when the extension payment is low. It totals about 1-1/4% per month on the unpaid balance, so why should they get upset? If it's really important to them they can start planning in Feb. And if the amount is so high that it becomes significant in absolute dollars, then maybe they need to invest in a little tax planning during the year when all that big income is rolling in rather than toss it on our desk in April & expect a magic wand to appear. One point about extensions - I always file them, even for clients who apparently have refunds. Don't want to be caught by surprise with a 5% per month FTF penalty when all it takes is a simple piece of paper to completely avoid it. Sorry for the rant. I'm a big fan of extensions because it stretches out the work, but I also believe it's important to train the clients.

Since we're in confession mode and it's fresh on my mind, I'll add that I wrote a check to a client yesterday for $ 142 to pay 2/3 of the interest assessed on a 2006 return. I made an error and it cost them money when it was discovered, so it was the only right thing to do. We all make mistakes - some cost more than others.

True, but there may be another round of rebates according to some rumors emanating from Washington (that's the place where all the wisdom resides for solving all our problems, whatever they might be). So it might be helpful to get anything right that can be corrected now.

They ran out of stimuls money already? Darn! I knew it was a mistake to file that extension.

Maybe somebody has a direct answer, but I'd go ahead & re-file on paper. You and he have nothing to lose by re-filing. The worst case is that he will get his rebate in 2009 and it won't cost him anything since you'll be doing that one for free, right?.