JohnH

As I'm recalling the situations I refer to, you'd be returning the money within less than 1 year. Or paying another tax preparer to do what you did for me. Trust me.

Yes, I have met a few whom I believed deserved the trust placed in them. But they are overshadowed by the vast majority who place their own interests above that of their clients. Commissions & fees are the major force driving their decisions and investment "advice". Far from being irrelevant, they are very relevant in a negative sort of way - they are a danger to their client's financial well-being. Miserable track records and highly dubious investments abound. But they can always be counted upon to have all the proper signatures on the CYA forms.

Financial advisors and brokers. But I've seldom seen them acting responsibly in these types of situations either.

Don't know if this in any way eases the pain, but here's my experience. Over the years, I've had one or two ex-clients whom I would have gladly PAID someone $1,000 to insure I never heard from them again. One situation did involve a new wife who obviously knew more about this business than I did (at least according to her).

Yep, Drake hasn't had a price increase in a long, long while. And the program, although excellent as it is, continues to get better and better. But as far as prince increases are concerned, I keep raising my fees each year. One purpose of being in business is not only to earn salary/wages, but also to make a PROFIT.

A struggling lawyer told his wife that he just wasn't making much money and if things didn't turn around soon they were going to move somewhere else. Six months later a second lawyer moved into their community. A year later both layers were the richest people in town. .

I think all or nothing. And get paid up front. Prepare all as paper returns & hand to him for signature & mailing. The client can choose to send them in (or not) as he wishes.

H-m-m. Interesting point there, Terry. You have me rethinking this as well. Could NC make it any more confusing?

I'd say that 1/3 of those for whom I filed extensions were still completed before this week. So for that subset, the extension was an unnecessary extra step. But for the remaining 2/3, none of them are on my mind today (aside from this post). I don't usually make fun of my clients, but I did have a phone call about 10:00 this morning from one whom I asked last Nov to find another preparer. Nice client, but just required too much handholding. I'd post the audio just to prove I'm not making this up, but that's probably a privacy issue. Anyhow, here goes (one long sentence without taking a breath - I inserted commas simply to make it easier to read): "John, this is xxx and I can't find my return from last year for my new tax person, my house is on the market and I hope somebody didn't steal it but I cant' find 2016 anywhere, OH WAIT A MINUTE here's the 2015 return and, oh yeah we're doing 2016 aren't we? Never mind, hope you're doing fine." (click) This could be a great Gilda Radner skit on "SNL for Accountants" Since the call was at 10:00, and since we have a long history, I'm betting her appointment was for 10:15.

I filed extensions on everything as it came in due to my "one-pass" rule this year. I think I'm going to start using it in the future. When info came in, if I could complete the return in one pass, I did so. Anything whatsoever that stopped the process - missing info, questions, etc - meant I generated an extension before putting the file away. No compromises, no exceptions. So there wasn't much to do in the past few weeks other than work normally. A couple of stragglers did show up this past week, and of course they get extensions right out of the box. The funniest one happened yesterday afternoon, when one I fired last year called to say his new wife is trying to get their return filed by the deadline and they need info from their 2015 return. (Of course he can't find his copy - that's the nature of these things. It also validates one of my reasons for the firing). So I sent them the copy, but also told her she should file an extension rather than stay up all night. I'm betting I'll get a panic call today on how to do the extension. I'm enough of a softie to help them out, because deep down I even appreciate the past loyalty of some of those I don't care to work with any more.

And here's another explanation (more to your point, I think). Looks to me like he cannot claim the standard deduction on the MFS return. But that's just from a quick read... http://www.dor.state.nc.us/taxes/individual/standard.html

Here's a link to the explanation. http://www.dornc.com/taxes/individual/resident.html

Oh yes, I hadn't looked at your state of residence. Now that I think about it, your screen name is familiar and I know who you are. That Mexican restaurant in Charlotte is still open...

On this forum, making any derogatory comments about women may likely get you a hug from Rita. Now she's a sweetheart overall, but you don't want THAT type of hug from Rita.

I'd like to be able to write off the time I waste explaining these exact same issues to certain clients - Every. Single. Year.

Protesters of any kind get ushered to the door. And ask them to give back your business card on their way out.

Bingo!

Having total control over what the macros do is a huge benefit. Drake is so flexible you can customize them to do whatever works best - either populate the form and return to the input screen or populate down to a certain point and then wait for input on the target screen. It's almost like having customizable "bunny hops" on steroids.

My handiest one right now is the extension macro I wrote. Alt-F1 for Federal and Alt-F2 for state of NC. It checks the boxes and waits for my entry for the tax liability. I also set up Alt-W to go to the W-2 input screen & wait for entries, Alt-H to answer "Yes" to Healthcare coverage & then return to the input screen, and Alt-F for the default entry for foreign accounts & return to the input screen. . Another useful macro for me is one which populates local Goodwill address info on the 8283. I have a few others as well.

I've had some success with these types by pointing out that "the only way you owe a lot more tax is that you earned a lot more". I also tell them I can't tell them the figures on their return are "right", but they are "correct". (There's nothing right about the government seizing our hard-earned money, etc and then wasting it). Sometimes the inevitable rant about how the government wastes our money ensues, and my only response is that you and I totally agree on that. But we also have to agree that we can't do anything about it sitting here in my office - the only place to take action is at the ballot box. At the end of the day, some clients just insist on blaming us for their problems because they can't speak to a monolithic bureaucracy. But I can assure them I have lots more complaints that they do, so there's no reason for them to go there.

Terry: Glad you are enjoying using the program. Makes you wonder why you waited so long, doesn't it? if you haven't worked with Macros yet, it's worth giving them a try. Just write a very simple macro for a repetitive task. After you've done one or two, you'll begin to see endless possibilities.

I think the main reasons people buy these things are because in the face of low interest rates they are chasing yield. They have no idea that the risk they are assuming is way out of proportion to the potential reward. They also don't understand that much the payout is not actual return on investment. Finally, the main reason is the huge commission these products pay to financial advisors. If their advice was really valuable, this violation of trust wouldn't exist. After all, where are the customers' yachts?

I'm not in them office for a few more days so can't look this up to confirm. But it seems as though one of the energy MLP's I handled within the past couple of years had some odd adjustments to basis because it reported considerable COD income. (It might have been K-M). Anyhow it sure was a pain trying to explain THAT entry to a high net woth client.

That's because they have to do a quick change when they lure someone into the office. It's tough handling the dual role of Lady Liberty AND your tax pro simultaneously.

This has always been a bit confusing, although I understand the logic of the IRS position. I have a situation where a taxpayer and his wife provide a home rent-free to the wife's sister and her husband. The taxpayers own the home outright (no mortgage) and they don't take any tax deductions other than the property tax, which they pay. Wonder if IRS would try to tax them on the FMV of the rent they don't charge the family member?