JohnH

I've been out of the country off and on during the past few weeks. Still around - lurking but not posting much. But back active now - thanks for asking.

To each his own, but I really appreciate clients who use technology. I've been pushing them in this direction for years and it has paid off. If a texted or scanned document is too small, it's usually fairly easy to blow it up. If the blown-up version loses too much clarity, I tell them to send it again at higher resolution. But that's a rarity. I return phone messages in a day or two, emails within a few hours, and texts instantly unless I'm really occupied. So that alone encourages them to text me or email me because they know how to get the fastest reponse. If someone leaves a message on my voice mail but I have their email or cell phone, I'll reply with a text or email most times. Email and text keeps the clients off my phone and out of my office, which means I have more time to get work done (and send invoices - that is what we are in business to do). What I find fascinating is how quickly many of my older (especially retired) clients have adopted technology in recent years - most of them routinely communicate with me by text. For the most part, only the very old ones (80+) are out of the loop technologically these days.

Caller: "I just have a few quick questions." Me: "Oh good, I have a special rate for quick questions. The answer to the first one is free. After that there's a charge." Caller: "How much is the charge?" Me: "$100 each. What's your next question?"

It didn't seem to affect my Mac.

I'll echo the Drake enthusiasm again. I was out of the country for a couple of weeks and just returned to work today. Took me about 3 minutes to renew my Drake software online while watching TV at home. Tomorrow I'll load it onto my computer at the office and will be preparing my first return 10-15 minutes later. Its a great program. Simple, elegant, faster than anything in its price category, and it's very stingy with memory and also space needed for backups. Time is money in this business, and time saved falls to the bottom line in the form of profitability.

I'm absolutely convinced that poorly written sentences are intentional in these email scams. The scammer is looking for people who don't pay close attention or even those whose understanding of grammar is not the best. They make the best victims.

Drake is always on top of things.

I think IRS will shoot it down fairly easily, but it is creative.

Happy New Year to All Y'all.

Usually the words contain extra syllables. Any southern English speaker can make the word "hear" (or "here") come out with two syllables and make it sound as natural as can be.

Elrod, let me correct your 3rd person pronouns. The 2nd/3rd person singular/plural is "Y'all. (can be one or more other people) The 3rd person plural/plural is "All Y'all". (must be a whole bunch of other people)

How do you know if an introvert likes you? When he talks with you he looks at your shoes instead of his own.

Just pay yourself $6 and call it a day. No need to amend.

But no significant downside either, unless they parked it in bitcoin during the interim.

Merry Christmas to everyone. Same sentiments here, Catherine.

A cursory look at the rules tells me that a small business operating as a C corp would generally be much better off electing S corp status. A C corp earning less than $75K or so will see an increase in its tax liability since the 15% rate on the first $50K is now raised to 21%.

Nice summary. Thanks, Lynn & AbbyN

One report I saw said the individual mandate would expire in 2019, if it remains in its present form. (But maybe that's old news). In any event, as Jack says, nothing is known until the final legislation is written and signed. That won't happen until all the the various bribes & trade-offs are in place. It's not for nothing that we have the best politicians money can buy.

Doesn't make any difference to me - I still have plenty to do. A missed appointment is never time wasted in an efficient office. As for the rest of the answer, I'll just say read Catherine's response. Good business practice isn't found in policies and procedures - it lies in the ability to make wise distinctions.

Anyone who anticipates remaining in this business for many years should think seriously about the ages of their current and prospective clients, and adapt to their means of communication. It's going to be difficult to grow in the coming years unless the preparer utilizes texting, online methods, and email. It still surprises me to see that even much of the older generation has gravitated to text and email communications. And except in very rare cases, it's virtually impossible to communicate with any person under 35 in any manner other than electronically. So a practitioner who ignores this trend can most likely expect to see their client base shrink in the future. That's OK if the business plan is a glide path toward retirement, but it's not a formula for growth. As an aside, I can't imaging charging for a missed appointment. I always have enough work on my desk to occupy me whether a particular client shows up or not. If they miss an appointment, we can reschedule. Charging for missed appointments may be a good short-term ego boost, but it's seriously bad for goodwill. It's a sure fire way to drive a wedge (or maybe a stake) in the client relationship

For W-2 forms, I use Tax-Print. It's a little quirky, but it does the job. For 1099 Forms, I think 1099Express is outstanding. Have been using it for some time now. It supports seamless uploading from Excel, cost is reasonable, and support is great. YOU can pick and choose which elements of their program you want to use. Last year, they automatically filed extension requests for everyone already in their data base. I thought that was a nice touch the first year of the Jan 31 deadlines.

My approach is similar to Sara & Catherine's. I run an estimate, then add a little to it. I tell the client to expect a follow-up bill from IRS for about that amount, and to send me an email or text with the final figures. My answer is almost always "That looks right. It's a little bit less than we originally estimated, so just send in a check for $ XXX.XX and you're done."

As a matter of fairness, I think offsetting the unpaid refund against current year taxes is reasonable. (similar to the bank invoking their right of offset when someone fails to pay on a loan but also has funds on deposit in other accounts). But as a matter of practice, it wouldn't be wise. It will do nothing but add confusion to an already convoluted process and create an additional paperwork blizzard. I'm guessing it would require at least a half-dozen separate letters and maybe a couple of hours explaining things to a very confused client. I doubt most clients would be happy when they receive the bill for the extra work you'd have to do in straightening it out.

Here's your chocolate moose. Now you just need to get him in a pie crust and then into the oven.

Thankful here as well for everyone on this forum. Happy Thanksgiving, and remember to set you scales back 10 lbs tonight at 2 am..