JohnH

Merry Christmas and best wishes for a profitable 2013.

I'm telling them to read the newspaper if they want to stay informed - that's what I'm doing.

I already knew you were going to post that comment.

I think a good rule of thumb would be to buy your tax software directly from the company rather than through a third party. Just my humble opinion.

Rita that was fantastic! Thanks. I thought the laugh of the day was the Secretary of State Nomination, but your link was just as good.

I renewed a couple of days ago. Took about 2 minutes. Can I have my salt back?

I abhor obfuscation

Yep, they really pulled the wool over everybody's eyes - Bush and Obama signed those tax bills just to make a mess of things.

I think they stopped being the Bush tax cuts the first time President Obama agreed to extend any of them. Thereafter, they were properly known as the Bush-Obama tax cuts. Depending upon what happens next, though, they will forever be known as the Obama tax increases after he signs the legislation. (or even if he doesn't sign anything)

Doesn't it just give you a warm, fuzzy feeling to know we're all just pawns being moved around on the Washington Chess Board? I'm more and more in favor of term limits for all politicians - one term in office followed by one term in prison.

I understand your point and your perspective. Expecting someone to demonstrate integrity always equates to an ad hominem attack in the Liberal universe.

The tax warehouse gives you some ways to sniff out certain forms. Schedule C & E are pretty easy if you look at the headings. So is lots of other useful info. If you sort by "Income Tax" and then look at "Total Tax", that might be a hint that EIC is in play if the total tax is lower (although it could also be other things). At least this approach would get you started with eliminating some you're not looking for. With the Education credit and Child Tax credit being split sometimes, this could be a bit of trial and error. But sometimes when analyzing data you want to eliminate 90% of what you're not looking for on the first pass and then focus on the remaining 10% to derive your answers. To do more analysis, you can "mark" them all under "View", then "export" to an Excel spreadsheet under "Reports". It goes right into Excel without any intermediate steps. Once you have it in Excel you can do a lot of the above with organized sorts to drill down to what's important. (For example, you could look at the difference between Income Tax and Total Tax while also weeding out anything above the income limits for EIC). There may be an easier way, but this is what I came up with off the top of my head. Once you have data in Excel, you can pretty much make it dance & sing if you know how to manipulate it.

Since we're talking about odd stuff here, there's something about psychics which has always puzzled me. Often you'll see a case where a psychic is called in to help locate a missing person. Why do they have to be "called in"? A competent psychic should already know the customer is planning to call them in, so they would just show up ready to work and nobody would be surprised by that. Plus it would validate the fact that they are really good psychic - maybe even earn them a higher fee.

"Presumptuous breath" - I like it! Do I have your permission to use it sometime? (I'll use it with or without permission, but I think I should at least show care and concern)

This entire thread is about opinions. My original point was that if somebody spouts off about how they should be paying more taxes than their secretary, then they can validate that statement by actually doing it. That would give them the moral high ground in the debate. Instead, we get lots of heat and smoke but no fire, and Liberals eat it up like catnip. (the smoke analogy is not accidental)

Just following the pattern already established. Don't know why you'd have a problem with it. Btw, the original point still stands, unrefuted as far as I'm concerned.

They are leaving the EIC alone. They just aren't leaving YOU alone. They are forcing tax preparers to become their auditors via the penalty provisions.

One way to deflect an argument is to call the other side silly names. But tired innuendo doesn't negate the original point. The simple fact remains that if Warren Buffet, Bill Clinton, Barak Obama, and other liberals really believe they should be paying more taxes, they should avail themselves of the opportunity to do so. There is a mechanism already built into the system to enable them to assuage their guilt over their low tax rates. Most importantly, it would also set an example that they could then encourage others to follow, either voluntarily or through changes to the tax system. A person of integrity will do the right thing even when not required to do it and even when others aren't doing it. Absent some concrete action on their part, all of the above are just blowing smoke for their liberal sycophants. It's pretty effective. I expect they are laughing all the way to the bank.

Thanks for checking on it. I think they're blowing smoke, and I notice they didn't address the security issue. Maybe they think that half an excuse will address the question. Many corporate types are like that. They insult your intelligence and then deceive themselves into thinking they've responded just because they don't get more push-back.

I usually test-drive one other program each year just to keep my powder dry. But I keep sticking with ATX because they have by far the best product FOR THE PRICE. Drake is a close second, but I personally still prefer ATX MAX and recommend it highly.

This is strictly anecdotal, but I'm convinced that the overall quality of care at a VA hospital depends upon its proximity to a university-affiliated teaching hospital.

No I haven't loaded it yet. Perhaps they've incorporated something along these lines. Will try to check it out in the next day or so. Thanks

I'd like to see a free-text "Sort" field in the return manager. Something that we can use whatever designation we wish as a way to categorize, sort, or arrange returns independent of the "Return Name" info. Even better, allow us the option to sort on both fields and to designate separate sort orders. It would be nice to be able to permanently override the prompt to use their built-in pdf writer when we want to use our own, (such as pdf factory). It gets tiresome having to click off that prompt every time I want a pdf of something. Better yet, provide a pdf writer that allows us to preview the file and also allow us to set a password so we don't have to use somebody else's pdf writer.

jainen: Hope all goes well with your eye surgery - you've every reason to be edgy.

All good ones KC. I'm loading up on meat, butter, and desserts. And a thought for the day. If the Maya could see centuries ago that an asteroid was going to crash into us in 2012, why couldn't they see the Spanish coming?