AIN'T THE IRS WONDERFUL?

[kcjenkins]

http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/IRS-Asks-Preparers-Taxpayers-Limit-Use-Wheres-My-Refund-Tool-65707-1.html?ET=webcpa:e6721:61496a:&st=email

[Chowdahead]

The comments on there are quite interesting. Even a mention of the infamous 8867...

[joanmcq]

I saw that same post on the official board. And I replied that she's full of bull; those questions were on the form before February 7; she just didn't bother to read the %#^*+ form. If you're relying on your software to know how to do a return-well she's one reason I was all for testing.

[BulldogTom]

You know I love you KC, but I hate when you post links. Most times I don't even go read them. But Joan's comment made the article seem interesting, so I clicked on it, only to have to endure a tax software advertisement.

I will not click on links any more on any post, even from you KC.

Tom

Hollister, CA

[joanmcq]

I click skip advertisement.

[Tax Prep by Deb]

But here is a problem I have run into. I did complete the forms, put the approriate checkmarks, sometimes having to go back a second or third time to get them to stick. Now I open one return in particular that I know I answered the questions regarding self-employed and now nothing is marked. I didn't un mark them the program did. So now my clien'ts refund has been held up because the software failed to perform it's due dilligence!

Deb!

[Eli]

But here is a problem I have run into. I did complete the forms, put the approriate checkmarks, sometimes having to go back a second or third time to get them to stick. Now I open one return in particular that I know I answered the questions regarding self-employed and now nothing is marked. I didn't un mark them the program did. So now my clien'ts refund has been held up because the software failed to perform it's due dilligence!

Deb!

Mine are still checked & they are still being held up. I wonder what gives?

[Lloyd Hudson]

I opened an incomplete return earlier. Single W-2 (kids return) and the payer info on w-2 and the address on 1040 had disappeared. Program still cannot keep up with me. Spend day watching hour glass.

[TAXMAN]

I am still having atx2012.loader problems. I received 2 efiles today. same client. 1 says accepted 1 says rejected with no explan.Time element appears to be within seconds.

[Chowdahead]

I saw that same post on the official board. And I replied that she's full of bull; those questions were on the form before February 7; she just didn't bother to read the %#^*+ form. If you're relying on your software to know how to do a return-well she's one reason I was all for testing.

Honestly, how many returns do you do and where do you do them? Because in a busy tax office I don't think your comments hold water. Sure if your working out of a nice cozy home office where your phone isn't ringing off the hook and people aren't walking in by the minute then you have can have the luxury of inspecting each and every form on the return line by line. Try working in an office where you have screaming kids running around, taxpayers explaining they wish to deduct everything under the Sun and then complaining about their refund, and gathering, photocopying, and documenting all of these documents for the EIC.

The fact is that we rely on the software to error-check and flag issues which may cause a problem, and then we address areas that are flags and require further attention, as well as inspecting all lines of the 1040 looking for possible carryover errors from various schedules. But ATX 2012 should be catching all all errors, especially the bureaucratic minutia like the 8867, which isn't even required if that same client files via FreeFile or TurboTax or Tax Act etc.

People need to stop making excuses for ATX. ATX 2012 is a tool to create error-free returns and the damn tool was seriously flawed.

[BulldogTom]

Cowderhead,

I like you, but what you just said is wrong. There is never an excuse for allowing a tax return to go out the door with an error that your knowledge, experience, and technical expertise should have caught. Errors happen occasionally, and there is nothing we can do about that. But expecting your software to know the client and their tax situation is unreasonable. It is our job to make sure our tools work as we tell them. We are the craftsmen, not the software.

No matter how busy I get, I still go over every line and every page on the tax return before it leaves my office. And I understand what every entry on every line represents, even the stupid questions on the 8867.

Tom

Hollister, CA

[mcb39]

Cowderhead,

I like you, but what you just said is wrong. There is never an excuse for allowing a tax return to go out the door with an error that your knowledge, experience, and technical expertise should have caught. Errors happen occasionally, and there is nothing we can do about that. But expecting your software to know the client and their tax situation is unreasonable. It is our job to make sure our tools work as we tell them. We are the craftsmen, not the software.

No matter how busy I get, I still go over every line and every page on the tax return before it leaves my office. And I understand what every entry on every line represents, even the stupid questions on the 8867.

Tom

Hollister, CA

I agree.........add up everything before putting the return together. Who ever said that we were perfect at data entry, etc. I NEVER rely on the software to "do the job" It is an excellent aid and catches many things that might have been missed, but it cannot add my numbers correctly if I enter them wrong. And, especially this year when the program puts weird entries where they never were before and adds dependents who have been on their own for years. How can you not in good conscience check every return?

[Chowdahead]

Cowderhead,

I like you, but what you just said is wrong. There is never an excuse for allowing a tax return to go out the door with an error that your knowledge, experience, and technical expertise should have caught. Errors happen occasionally, and there is nothing we can do about that. But expecting your software to know the client and their tax situation is unreasonable. It is our job to make sure our tools work as we tell them. We are the craftsmen, not the software.

No matter how busy I get, I still go over every line and every page on the tax return before it leaves my office. And I understand what every entry on every line represents, even the stupid questions on the 8867.

Tom

Hollister, CA

I totally agree that I am at fault. I should have checked the return form by form and line by line, and added each line up and double-checked all the totals and percentages and ratios with a calculator, and verified this all in the associated form instructions. In the end, the buck ends with me. But I am guilty with an explanation.

I have never in my short tenure preparing tax returns have seen the crush of people all filing at once at the end of January as I did this year. If ATX 2012 had been working as well ATX 2011 worked, I would have probably coped. However, every facet of this God-forsaken program this year takes 200-300% longer to do, sometimes 1000% or 2000% longer! This leads to hours and hours of unproductive time each day, and there are only 24 hours in each day.

Sure it may not seem like the fact that a return taking 2-3 minutes extra time to open is no big deal. But add that to how long it was taking the program to restart after crashing (sometimes 5-7 minutes) 10-15 times daily. Add to this the time it takes to open a return and create an e-file (6-7 minutes). Add to this printing times which varied between 30 sec to 5-10 minutes per return. Add to this the sluggish behavior of the Return Manager the filters and the sorting are all sluggish to refresh. To simply open and create 60 e-files takes me almost 2-3 hours this year. Last year it would take me 30 minutes. Even to simply Transmit and Receive Acknowledgements take upwards of 2000% longer than last year, plus the minor idiotic field entry errors that ATX used to catch and is now allowing to be e-filed only to reject from the EFC (and how about 40 MA returns that got rejected with Vendor Code invalid !!).

And let's not even get into how much time I have spent searching on this forum and on the official forum for answers because ATX Customer Support is non-existent and the ATX Knowledgebase is useless. So I have spent dozens and dozens of hours, maybe hundreds, researching solutions to problems with the software instead of preparing and double-checking returns.

I've spent 5-6 nights at the office until 2:30 A.M., and most nights have been until midnight, only to come back to work at 8 a.m. and try to catch up on the pile of dropped off returns, e-files that need to be created and sent, and state e-files that need to be created and sent because ATX didn't have my state "E-file Info Form" ready on time. I have a wife and 4-month-old daughter at home who basically haven't seen my face since 4 weeks ago.

So yeah, fault me for not manually catching EVERY SINGLE 8867 that I e-filed (ATX is still not checking "No Disabled Child" so now I still have to catch all of these as well). I plead guilty to that. But I wasn't put in the best position to succeed this year. Not by a long shot.

Am I stressed? A bit.

[B. Jani]

I feel for all preparer who have lots of walking traffic. But as soon as I found out that program crashes and other problems, I uncheck all the boxes at the bottom of the rollover form. Rollover just the info only. After every update deleted the asset folder and download new forms. Printed worksheet from last year tax PDF and started doing some more data entry this year. The result is almost few crashes, and returns get completed faster. So change of work flow helped me a lot to control my loss of time. Yes I have previlage that I work from home and I do not have people waiting for me. But instead of getting upset (software issues) which is not in my control, I would rather focus on task at hand and my returns are getting completed (little slow) but result is getting better and better. I do have returns with forms are still not approved by IRS. But I know one thing, focus on work at hand. I check every tax return before creating efile and the result is less rejection. This is how I work.

[Jack from Ohio]

I totally agree that I am at fault. I should have checked the return form by form and line by line, and added each line up and double-checked all the totals and percentages and ratios with a calculator, and verified this all in the associated form instructions. In the end, the buck ends with me. But I am guilty with an explanation.

I have never in my short tenure preparing tax returns have seen the crush of people all filing at once at the end of January as I did this year. If ATX 2012 had been working as well ATX 2011 worked, I would have probably coped. However, every facet of this God-forsaken program this year takes 200-300% longer to do, sometimes 1000% or 2000% longer! This leads to hours and hours of unproductive time each day, and there are only 24 hours in each day.

Sure it may not seem like the fact that a return taking 2-3 minutes extra time to open is no big deal. But add that to how long it was taking the program to restart after crashing (sometimes 5-7 minutes) 10-15 times daily. Add to this the time it takes to open a return and create an e-file (6-7 minutes). Add to this printing times which varied between 30 sec to 5-10 minutes per return. Add to this the sluggish behavior of the Return Manager the filters and the sorting are all sluggish to refresh. To simply open and create 60 e-files takes me almost 2-3 hours this year. Last year it would take me 30 minutes. Even to simply Transmit and Receive Acknowledgements take upwards of 2000% longer than last year, plus the minor idiotic field entry errors that ATX used to catch and is now allowing to be e-filed only to reject from the EFC (and how about 40 MA returns that got rejected with Vendor Code invalid !!).

And let's not even get into how much time I have spent searching on this forum and on the official forum for answers because ATX Customer Support is non-existent and the ATX Knowledgebase is useless. So I have spent dozens and dozens of hours, maybe hundreds, researching solutions to problems with the software instead of preparing and double-checking returns.

I've spent 5-6 nights at the office until 2:30 A.M., and most nights have been until midnight, only to come back to work at 8 a.m. and try to catch up on the pile of dropped off returns, e-files that need to be created and sent, and state e-files that need to be created and sent because ATX didn't have my state "E-file Info Form" ready on time. I have a wife and 4-month-old daughter at home who basically haven't seen my face since 4 weeks ago.

So yeah, fault me for not manually catching EVERY SINGLE 8867 that I e-filed (ATX is still not checking "No Disabled Child" so now I still have to catch all of these as well). I plead guilty to that. But I wasn't put in the best position to succeed this year. Not by a long shot.

Am I stressed? A bit.

At the firm, we will do close to 3,000 returns this year. Each is gone over line by line by a preparer and then a second time by a different preparer. This reduces to .1% the number of returns with ommissions or entry mistakes. Software issues have caused the process to be less efficient, but software is NO REPLACEMENT for a tax professional reviewing the return before sending it out.

If you have a return that has errors or ommissions, it gets audited, how far do you think "The software did this, or the software did that" will get you with an auditor?

I value my professional reputation too much to think that the software should be the answer to all the problems. Software is a tool, not a professional preparer nor is it to be the only source of decisions about the return. That is what I get paid for.

Maybe an evaluation of your office practices and protocols are in order? We handle 3,000 every year and we double check every return before releasing it.

[Tax Prep by Deb]

But here again I have to say that even if we do all the checks and rechecks, that first weeks I had check marks that kept disappearing. Now I'm finding it went much deepe than I originally thought. I opened a return that was e-file with a schedule C attached and qualified for EIC. I did the due dillegence worksheets, all 4 of them and even included some additional information on the page that isn't transmitted. I know I selected the information on the schedule C that I relied on to verify income, but now that I repopened the return all that info is missing.

I also agree with the statement that if the child is within the specified age why do we have to designate that the child is not disabled? Also why did a minute few get by and rerunds issued with exactly the same info?

Also what about the several other returns that didn't have EIC that have not cleared yet. I can go on and on and on. The problem is when we submit a return after reviewing it we expect it to transmit that way, but unfortunately in my case this wasn't so.

I did my due dillegence, I expect my software to do its!

Deb!

[Chowdahead]

Maybe an evaluation of your office practices and protocols are in order? We handle 3,000 every year and we double check every return before releasing it.

I don't deny that. But more importantly I will make sure I am not using software that hinders me.

Just curious, how much does your firm charge for a standard 1040, MFJ, 2 w-2s, with single family home (Sch a), EIC, Education Expenses?

[Chowdahead]

But here again I have to say that even if we do all the checks and rechecks, that first weeks I had check marks that kept disappearing. Now I'm finding it went much deepe than I originally thought. I opened a return that was e-file with a schedule C attached and qualified for EIC. I did the due dillegence worksheets, all 4 of them and even included some additional information on the page that isn't transmitted. I know I selected the information on the schedule C that I relied on to verify income, but now that I repopened the return all that info is missing.

Agreed. There is a growing vocal minority that are claiming they did in fact make the appropriate checks on Pg. 3 and Pg. 4 of the 8867 and those checkmarks are now blank upon opening the return after it was accepted.

So there is concern that the software was un-checking boxes erroneously, as continues to happens on other parts of the 8876 and other forms.

ATX posted the following news on it's web site yesterday:

Updated 2-19-2013 The following IRS Quick Alert was issued Feb 4 concerning Form 8867, Paid Preparer’s Earned Income Credit Checklist

ATX added a diagnostic warning Feb 5^th to alert the ERO if questions were unanswered on pages 1-4 of the 8867.

The IRS does not have business rules for information entered or not entered on Form 8867. They do not reject a return if information is missing on Form 8867, but the refund could be delayed and letters mailed to gather that missing information. Even if the 8867 is filled out completely, IRS could delay the refund for several weeks.

IRS Quick Alert: “The IRS has noticed that a large number of returns with the Form 8867, Paid Preparer’s Earned Income Credit Checklist, have incomplete information. Although the IRS will not reject a return if information is missing on Form 8867, these returns will be suspended causing a potential delay in refunds if the information is missing.

We are asking software developers and transmitters to communicate the Form 8867 information requirements through their software and other communication channels. Specifically, when Form 8867 is present in a return and Earned Income Credit is claimed, entries for lines 22, 23, 24, 25, both parts of 26, and 27 must be present. We recommend that the software ensures these lines on Form 8867 have entries in order to avoid processing delays that could impact refunds.

We also ask that you remind preparers that they could be assessed a penalty if they fail to comply with the due diligence requirements.”

[joanmcq]

Chowdahead, the 8867 issue is all over the Proseries board too. They're screaming as loud as the ATXers. I don't know about Drake, or UltraTax, Lacerte, etc. My main clientele is RDP returns, and we've had a lot of discussion about how to do these with the new form, but the discussion on my listserve dedicated to LGBT issues is polite and we aren't screaming about software. So much different than any of the others.

And I do agree, the delay in efiling, which isn't an issue of us, the IRS or the software companies, except to the point that it has screwed all of us up, is making workflow much different this year. And I do work at home and do not do returns in front of clients.

But for my first two EIC returns, I scrutinized the form ten times over. It's new, the due dilligence penalties are horrendous, and I want to be sure everything is correct.

Maybe you need someone just to answer the phones?

[Chowdahead]

Maybe you need someone just to answer the phones?

Yes I most certainly do. Next year I am seriously considering getting someone to do just that.

[BulldogTom]

Chowdahead, Like I said, I like you. How could anyone not like you. And I completely understand your frustrations and the complexities of this year. Don't take anything I wrote as a slam. This is just tax guys and gals talking.

We can only control what we can control. But the part that we can control, we should do our best, because our clients are paying us to get that effort. I know I can sleep at night after my clients call and ask why the refund has not come in. I did my best, and I see nothing in the tax return that should cause a delay. They should call the IRS and complain, and then call their congressman and complain. I did my part professionally and to the best of my ability.

We just keep plugging away trying to get to the next day.

Tom

Hollister, CA

[Jack from Ohio]

I don't deny that. But more importantly I will make sure I am not using software that hinders me.

Just curious, how much does your firm charge for a standard 1040, MFJ, 2 w-2s, with single family home (Sch a), EIC, Education Expenses?

Probably less that you do.