JohnH

Mel: Reminds me of the story about a US president (Roosevelt, I think) who was so bored standing in a reception line repeating the same old geetings that he decided to have a little fun by making nonsensical statements & watching for the reaction. After several people passed by without even noticing his comments, he said to the British ambassador "I shot my mother in law today" as the ambassador passed by shaking hands. In typical British fashion, the ambassador paused, reached back to grasp both of Roosevelt's hands in his, replied "And I'm sure she deserved it Mr President", and moved on.

Do you really want to voluntarily ump into the middle of a domestic dispute? Police officers (who carry handcuffs, guns & mace as a standard item of personal protection) will tell you that this is one of the most dangerous types of situations they face on a daily basis.

You seem to be basing your assumptions on the fact that you prepared the returns correctly, but are you taking into account there may be a filing you don't know about? I've already heard of a couple of situations in which the taxpayer, a family member, or a friend separately filed a stimulus return when the taxpayer was not entitled to receive the payment. This could easily have been done without your knowledge, and maybe even without the taxpayer fully understanding what was done on their behalf by a well-meaning but uninformed friend.

The IRS web site says the stimulus payment will be reduced by any taxes owed, but I'm sure there are situations where the system misses a beat & fails to detect an outstanding balance somewhere. In any case, if the client owes money and it is not deducted from the stimulus payment as expected, they still owe the money and somewhere along the way there will be a bill. I've received feedback from a few clients who owed monwy on the 2007 return and they chose to short-pay the balance, expecting the rebate to offset against the remainder (plus a little bit of accrued interest). So far that's what has happened with each of them. I also have one who has an installment agreement in place with a balance in excess of $20K. The installment agreement is current. They have a $2,000 refund on their 2007 return and also a $1,200 rebate coming. I told them to expect the entire $3,200 to be offset against their balance due, but if for some reason they received any of the money from either teh refund or the rebate, they should remember that they will still owe an equal amount on the balance due on the installment agreement. The math really isn't that complex - it's a matter of pay them now or pay them later, plus interest & penalties.

I'm thinking about trying a Mac as well. Microsoft sometimes begins to look & act like IBM back in the 1970's & 80's. Just knew they owed the market and then got their head handed to them.

Yes, I know. Fortunately CA allows an exception for out-of-state preparers, so my one CA return is still a paper filing. If they ever require me to efile, I'll have a nice referral for a preparer located near Walnut Creek, CA.

I'll have to give you a definite answer next year when we find out if those 2 or 3 come back...

So who do you blame if you use efile and still have a problem? I only prepared about 200 returns last year and had 2 or 3 issues to come up which would have been caught in advance had I been using efile. That's professional enough for me, and apparently it is for my clients. Your mileage may vary.

I'm running one wth XP and another with Vista. It isn't a problem to switch from one to the other, but I'm amazed at how sluggish the Vista computer is. It literally acts like the guy in the Mac commercial - dozing off in the middle of a conversation. Sometimes in the middle of an operation in Excel it will just side into a suspended state more or less lik it's meditating. I have learned to notice it and I just turn & do something else for anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes. Eventually I'll notice that the cursor is back so I return to what I was doing. The computer was sold to me by Office Depot with Vista installed, so one would think you could expect it to work normally. My computer guy says he's going to install additional memory and we'll see if that makes a difference. In the meantime, my experience has told me that Vista is a dud.

I didn't know that. I thought that anyone who has an installment agreement in place would still see their refund confiscated to pay down the debt, even if the installment agreement is current. Doesn't the installment agreement include a right of offset for any refunds due?

You know, I hear this frequently about how clients don't want to pay for IRS errors, but that hasn't been my experience. If I make a mistake, I fix it and I don't bill for it. If IRS makes a mistake, I charge for the time to fix the error and most clients have never complained (maybe some just left without complaining - who knows?). But most clients have enough common sense to understand where the responsibility lies if it's just explained to them properly. If they don't have enough judgement to figure that out or enough trust in me to accept my explanation, then I probably don't want their business. I'm not really criticizing eflinging or the people who do it, I'm just saying it isn't for everybody and the IRS has no business trying to force anyone to use it if they dont' want to.

On the one hand I don't disagree with either of you, but on the other hand why stop with the IRS end? True client service would include verifying things such as W2 forms and home mortgage interest statements, since those are usually the two major items on the average return. Maybe have the client bring in all their check stubs to be sure the employer's data entry people didn't make a mistake somewhere along the way in preparing the W-2. Maybe get a copy of their home mortgage note and copies of mortgage payment checks & run the math to verify that the lender's data entry people entered everything properly for interest and property taxes. Church financial secretries make a lot of mistakes, so maybe it' a goo idea to add up all the conribution checks to be sure they're on the contribution statement. I know I'm still being petty according to jainen's reasoning, but in all honesty I think I'll do my job as I see it and let everyone else in the process do theirs.

There are many reasons I don't efile, having more to do with the way I operate my business than with any specific benefit to the client. I've discussed this with many of my clients and they don't care whether or not I efile since the majority of them owe money anyhow. Basically, they and I agree that my job is not to be a data input clerk for the IRS. But what KC just posted has always been a significant factor for me. I recognize the administrative and processing benefits offered by efiling, but I just don't have any desire to voluntarily turn over the power to shut me down to the whims of a bureaucrat or a computer glitch, and I have seen that happen to others.

Excellent point, but I wouldn't exactly call it EARLY retirement.

The article says they propose to exempt preparers who file under 50 returns, with additional exceptions for people who opt out voluntarily. Looks like I'll be raising my rates again next year to try and drive off a few more clients - and maybe charge an extra $100 for anyone who wants to efile (unless they want to sign an opt-out wavier).

Since the topic of this string is dog jokes, I thought it wouild be a good place to tell about Sniffer the Labrador: A man is sitting in an airliner, which is about to take off when another man with a Labrador Retriever occupies the 2 empty seats beside him. The Lab is situated in the middle, and the first man is looking quizzically at the dog when the second man explains that they work for the airline. The airline rep said, "Don't mind Sniffer; he is a sniffing dog, the best there is; I'll show you once we get airborne when I put him to work." The plane takes off and levels out when the handler says to the first man,"Watch this." He tells the dog, "Sniffer, search." Sniffer jumps down, walks along the aisle, and sits next to a woman for a few seconds. It then returns to its seat and puts one paw on the handler's arm He says "Good boy." The airline rep turns to the first man and says, "That woman is in possession of marijuana, so I'm making a note of this and her seat number for the police who will apprehend her on arrival." "Fantastic!" replies the first man. Once again he sends Sniffer to search the aisles. The Lab sniffs about, sits down beside a man for a few seconds, returns to its seat, and places two paws on the handler's arm. The airline rep says, "That man is carrying cocaine, so again I'm making a note of this and the seat number." "I like it!" says the first man. A third time the rep sends Sniffer to search the aisles. Sniffer goes up and down the plane and after a while sits down next to someone. He then comes racing back, jumps up onto his seat, and poops all over the place. The first man is really grossed out by this behavior from a supposedly well-trained sniffing dog and asks, "What's going on?" The handler nervously replies, "He just found somebody with a bomb"!

Thanks KC. I'll remember it when the time comes. Do you have a cite for that?

--> One of the instructors I had at HRB (that was a long time ago now) used to call these "God returns," since presumably that's where they hope to get the answers. <-- That's different from my definition. I'd consider a "God return" to be any return when my prayers that it won't be audited are more fervent than the client's prayers.

Yesterday I received both a message on my voice mail and an email stating the following: "We'll get right to the point. After June 30th, your 10% ATX renewal discount will be gone! There will be no more discounts this year. " I wonder if this time it means they are going to do what they say and leave me alone until I decide whether to renew (probably in Dec or Jan). I say that tongue-in-cheek because I really don't mind the calls & emails - I like to study others' marketing successes and screw-ups. However, it has the look and feel of the old "It's Over" post-closing technique popular in the Sandler Sales Method. We will see if there's another round in the near future, maybe accompanied by coffee makers, toaster ovens, or other trinkets. That's about the only threshhold their marketing geniuses haven't crossed, but I have confidence in them that they may get there yet.

I agree completely with you KC. From a technical point of view I have few complaints about ATX - it has performed well for me. My problem stems from the fact that I wear a marketing hat in my other role. I admire good marketing & try to learn from it, and it irritates me when a company with a good product does such a dismal job of marketing as I've seen over the past 18 months with ATX

I haven't seen anything from ATX about the mileage rate increase, but Drake was nice enough to email me a reminder even though I'm not a paying customer (yet). They have my email address because I've been evaluating their software. Looks like Drake has some marketing people who are on the ball. Doesn't cost them anything except a few extra electrons to stay in touch with me and now the goodwill extends even to this forum because I admire their foresight & marketing savy. ATX could learn something from them if they didn't already know it all.

Maybe when you hit 1,000 the counter should reset to -0- and you start all over again. The when you hit ATXAholics Anonymous again, you get a gold star (or possibly an infiinty sign) below your name.

Tell your client a good battery choice for the portable CPAP is a deep-cycle marine battery. Sorry if I'm dominating the conversatoin, but I just can't resist providing any info I can about this subject. I'm a bit of a fanatic about encouraging people to do whatever is necessary to use their CPAP - it will prolong their life and vastly increase its quality.

While sleep apnea is a serious condition, I've never heard of anyone dying because their CPAP quit during the night. (Could be wrong, but I think the taxpayer is exaggerating a little in order to justify the generator, although it's a good thing that he is being this conscientious about using it regularly). There are several reasons the sleep apnea patient can lose positive pressure from the device, aside from a power loss. The hose can become disconnected at the machine or where it attaches to the head becauase all the connections are just slip joints, or the mask itself can displace as the patient moves around in their sleep. I've used a CPAP for over 5 years and have experienced most of this stuff, but in spite of the occasional inconvenience I wouldn't think of going to sleep without the machine. I own 3 of them - one for bedside use, a separate one packed & ready to go at all times for travel, and a third one just for extra backup.

Sounds like your client has already made the purchase, but rather than buy a generator to power his CPAP, he'd be much better off buying a battery-powered CPAP similar to the ones manufactured for campers. Not only would it be more practical, but there would be no question about the medical deduction for the second CPAP. Most importantly, he would have a backup machine if his primary CPAP malfunctions, which is infinitely more important than having a secondary power source.