JohnH

The TaxBook is a great investment. Well worth the price. And their Forum is very good as well.

I never send anything to third parties under any circumstances. (This includes tax returns, by the way). Everything goes to the client. If a third party absolutely requires a document from me as a condition of approving something for a client, then the client isn't going to get the loan, approval, grant, whatever. The more adamant they are about this, the more convinced I become that they want to drag me into some sort of potential liability situation.

Be sure to take advantage of the Drake tutorials as well. They're short & to the point. If you have dual monitors, it's helpful to run a tutorial while entering data on the other screen. Above all, learn how to use that navigation box at the bottom left of the screen. It's the secret to moving around quickly in Drake. Also, take the time to write a couple of simple macros. Once you do that & find how easy it is, you'll find lots of reasons to use them to automate various tasks.

Nice, Jack. Thanks.

Probably my favorite "Far Side" cartoon as well. Attachment is for your viewing pleasure (if this is some sort of copyright infringement somebody please tell me) FarSide.pdf

I haven't noticed anything unusual.

I keep a pdf copy on my computer. It's handy for quick lookups.

If it's a "C" corp and he paid personal expenses out of the corp, then it is a constructive dividend. Taxable to both the corp and to the shareholder.

As for fee discussions, you could always tell them you answer the first question for free, but there's a charge for every question after that. The conversation usually goes like this: Client: "How much do you charge for each question after the first one?" You: "I charge $100 for each. What's your next question?"

Yes, Gene's advice is correct. I'm telling all my NC clients that the only advice they should give their employees is to enter their marital status and -0- exemptions. NC has essentially eliminated personal exemptions and made several other adjustments, while lowering the tax rate. Presumably, it has negligible effect on most taxpayers (well, at least until they begin creeping the rate up in years to come). I ran a few just for kicks in the past few days. Taxpayers in the $30K range will see a difference of about $2 - 3 in weekly withholding under the new scheme of they claim zero exemptions. So just how much trouble do we want to go to in order to increase or decrease the refund/balance due by $150? Not worth anyone's time to read the 10 pages of instructions that they're sending with the new forms. And as noted in the OP, the employer instructions say to withhold at the zero exemption level if the form isn't returned, although I imagine most employers aren't going to be happy if the employee doesn't fill in the new form.

Merry Christmas ChristmasTrees.pdf

Despite the increase, my fees are still below “the competition”. I invite you to compare my fee with any other tax preparation service. Here's what I thing your'e communicating, without meaning to: I work cheap. Check around and you'll see that's true. Here's how some clients might interpret that "I wonder what short cuts she's taking. ? ? ?" 1) I don't think you gain anything by calling people's attention to price. 2) Being the lowest-priced person around really isn't anything to brag about. 3) If you encourage them to look around, they will probably find SOMEONE who will work cheaper than you. And once they've done that, they make take your advice and switch based on price.

I like Mike and Michael's answers. Also, you will be pleasantly surprised to hear some clients say "I wondered when you were going to go up. My brother-in-law pays his tax preparer twice what you charge me, and I know for a fact his return's a whole lot simpler than mine."

Personally, I still like this. It's in my client letter: "Fees & charges for basic tax preparation will again increase an average of 6% - 8% this year. Also, some schedules involving more complex tax matters may incur additional charges exceeding the general increase. The type of items most affected are returns reporting rental income, returns reporting multiple transactions involving the sale of stocks or mutual fund investments as noted in the previous paragraph, and returns reporting income from self-employment. I encourage you to ask for an estimate if you have any concerns about what it will cost to complete your return." Then say nothing about the fee increase unless they ask. I find that very few ask. ============================================ There's a principle in sales which applies to many other situations in life - "any time you're explaining, you're backing up." By signaling that you feel a need to explain in advance, you're inviting people to question you. You're turning control of the conversation over to them before they even show any interest in pursuing the matter. It's much better to assume that reasonable people will understand that you need to increase your fees from time-to-time. For those who don't, you need to decide whether they're worth taking the time to explain yourself to them. In some cases, your answer might just be - "that's what I'm charging now for your type of return."

Thanks Eric

I like the idea of making it a part of the name

H-m-m. So what we learn from this entire conversation is that there are good and bad online providers and there are good and bad in-person seminars. But neither is good or bad based on the means of delivery; only the content determines that. Is this something we didn't already know?

Nice post Judy. After the last round of conversations a few months ago about personal attendance vs web-based learning, it was clear to me that there's a wide range of opinion and and a fair amount of misinformation about the subject. I personally prefer self-paced learning because I often find seminars boring and a colossal waste of travel time, but others see things just the opposite. I also dislike hearing people at lectures ask questions to which they already know the answer just so they can impress others with their knowledge, which I notice happens frequently. Then about a month ago (in my other job) I was touring a brand new medical school in NC and the program director showed us a classroom with traditional theater-type seating. Well, traditional except for the high-tech lectern, video camera, and video screens/electronic white board across the entire front of the room. She pointed out that each student was issued a "clicker" which they could use to answer diagnostic questions as the lecture progressed, and the instructor could immediately display a frequency distribution on the screen. This instant feedback allows the instructor to tailor the lecture and reemphasize points which were missed by too many students. After all, the instructor's responsibility to communicate the information is as important as the student's responsibility to absorb it. This instant feedback enables them to adjust "on the fly". They also have the capability to store and review all answers, and then speak privately with students who consistently miss too many questions (without embarrassing them publicly) I commented how effective this is for 80-100 students at a time, and she replied it's actually a much larger class at times. They have the capability for students to log in via the internet and drastically increase the number of students served, some in locations far from the campus. Plus they record the lectures for review and later replay for students who were unable to attend for health, emergencies, other reasons. I supose high-tech learning is fine for medical students but not so useful for tax preparers.

Have you tried sorting on some other field, then re-sorting on customer name? http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/SLN40562

Same here. I avoid nice courses - out of respect for the game. But on those rare occasions when I do play, no matter where we play or who I'm with, I always claim bragging rights for the lowest average cost-per-shot.

It works for any phone number, because you are introducing calculations which cancel one another out. In the process, you are providing the relevant information in steps 2 and 6 + 7, (after netting out the sum of 6 +7 in step 9 by dividing by 2). Enter it all in a spreadsheet and you can get a visual of how it does its magic.

I don't bother with handling my Medicare payments as a SEHI adjustment either, mainly because II don't think it's worth the trouble. And I'm sure it isn't required. So you can just disregard it insofar as the S-Corp is concerned if you wish. Another point. if you happen to have enough total medical expense to derive a deduction on Schedule A, then you get the benefit of deducting the Medicare premiums anyhow. So in that case the only deduction you gain is a reduction of the 7.5% haircut, which on a $1,200 SEHI adjustment is only $90. The tax savings would be $15 - $23, depending upon your marginal rate. That's not worth doing a lot of paperwork at year-end.

Happy birthday Eric.

But far better to be dead wrong here, where it costs us nothing, than to give wrong advice to a client. I've seen a few conversations on this forum where I was on the wrong side (Politics Forum Exempted), and avoided a mistake or two when it came time to deal with the situation with a client.

Did we ever ask how much tax is involved? And compared to a thousand or two in legal fees with possibly the same outcome, how does that stack up?