Broken Trust...thanks ATX

[Janitor Bob]

Throughout my many years, ATX has always maintained one point of reliability....regardless of other issues, I (and my clients) could always count on one thing: If I transmitted a return on April 15th, it would be considered timely filed by IRS (rejections and re-submits aside). Now it appears that ATX hs broken that trust. Kimmie's statement in another post is that ATX "thinks" these returns transmitted on 04/15 will be considered timely filed even though they have a date stamp of 04/16 as received by EFC. "THINKS'?! That's all I need to know...trust broken. Forever.

[Jack from Ohio]

What does it say when 26 forms were updated 4-15 and 18 forms updated so far 4-16??

[Janitor Bob]

What it does NOT tell me is why ATX took approx. 9 hours to get my returns from their servers to EFC. But hey, I feel better knowing that ATX "feels" that these will be considered timely filed. I guess it would be too much to know and trust that they were considered timely.

[Jack from Ohio]

ATX is EFC.

[Guest Taxed]

I still have returns from yesterday yet to be submitted to IRS. It is at the EFC???

[joanmcq]

Mine are all at agency now. I just checked now, so I don't know when they were sent from EFC to agency. But in the past, as long as they were at EFC status, they were accepted as timely. Heck, I transmitted on back in the old days at 11:46pm on October 15: client was sending me her moms stuff by fax at 8pm! and it was accepted as timely. Those were the days it took two or three days to get ACKs.

[ILLMAS]

Don't feel sad, tell your clients the truth, "Hey you waited till the last minute to bring in your info and the system overloaded because of last minute filers like you". I have a couple still being transmitted but there is nothing I can do

[Jack from Ohio]

Don't feel sad, tell your clients the truth, "Hey you waited till the last minute to bring in your info and the system overloaded because of last minute filers like you". I have a couple still being transmitted but there is nothing I can do

"Lack of planning on your part does not create an emergency on my part."

Everyone knows that April 15 came a month early this year.

[Terry D EA]

It would be interesting to see if the IRS would recognize the massive problems at the end and allow for this so folks don't get penalized. Time stamped or not, considered timely filed; etc still bothers me.

[joanmcq]

Drake went down intermittently all during the 15th and their customers couldn't even transmit TO them. From what I hear their vaunted phone lines went dark too. Nobody's perfect. I wonder why all the drake people aren't in here bitching?

[taxxcpa]

There was one person on the Drake forum who said he would not renew with Drake. Everyone else indicated that a one-time problem, as bad as it was, was not a reason to switch. Drake probably had thousands of calls and was unable to handle all of them and, as one Drake user pointed out, he would rather have them working on fixing the problem instead of answering telephone calls.

Drake finally got things working about 11:00 P.M. at which time I was sound asleep since I sent my last transmission before the system went down.

If Drake had multiple problems, it would be a good reason to switch, but switching for a one-time problem would be like one of your clients switching if you made a one-time error in preparing their return.

A week or two earlier, all of Drake's web sites were not working. They claimed the problem was not within Drake, but elsewhere on the internet. At that time I could access any web site other than Drake's. A day later, I I could not get on the internet at all--to Drake or anywhere else. An hour or two later the internet was up and running again.

There is always a risk that massive last-minute filings could overwhelm either the IRS or the software provider, so people who wait until the last minute to file or request an extension deserve at least equal blame.

[Jack from Ohio]

There is always a risk that massive last-minute filings could overwhelm either the IRS or the software provider, so people who wait until the last minute to file or request an extension deserve at least equal blame.

Taxpayers generally will NOT accept any responsibility for being "last minute." As though they are the only taxpayer in the whole world.

[jklcpa]

^ and that is why I don't wait until the last day to file extensions. I filed mine days early except for one. That one last client owed money and wasn't covered by the 90% rule, so I had to wait for them to respond with how they wanted to pay the money owed. They didn't get back to me until Sat evening at 10pm. Their extension was filed at 10:01pm. This was a new client that came in on 4/9, breaking my owe rule there, I agreed to take this simple return. It's only complexity was they live in PA, husband works in DE.

[joelgilb]

Drake went down intermittently all during the 15th and their customers couldn't even transmit TO them. From what I hear their vaunted phone lines went dark too. Nobody's perfect. I wonder why all the drake people aren't in here bitching?

Joan:

Good question and here is why no complaints.

For me I am not complaining about Drake's one and only burp this season for a few reasons:

1. Drake staff and Phil Drake himself took full responsibility and sincerely apologized for the problem, and

2. Drake staff kept us informed all along the way

3. I personally never had a problem getting through the phone lines, although due overloaded circuits I sometimes had to use a different phone company (cell, or other business line with a diff company)

4. Drake is the ONLY tax software company that negotiated an extra day to file returns and extensions (until 04/16/2013) with IRS., due to Drake's server problems.

and the final reason, is that Drake indicated if for some reason IRS does have a problem with IRS treating a return or extension as late, to contact them and they will stand up and do the right thing.

[kcjenkins]

Excellent reasons, Joel. Reminds me of ATX back in the Willett days.

[Mainetaxguy]

ATX just wants to get in touch with your feelings.

[joelgilb]

Oh and one other thing Joan.

Drake has an unwritten Nine Second Rule (not a guarantee btw) where they try and are almost always successful in getting you to a Live Tech in 9 Seconds. And in my experience, they actually do this, even after all the new customers they picked up from ATX. TaxWorks, TaxWise and TRX.

UNBELIEVABLE SUPPORT that I am still wondering how they did that.

And never ever did they have to take me to a 2nd tier support because they couldn't answer my question or solve my problem.

I can honestly say, I have never seen better tech support, since I started using In-House tax software back in 1983.

[cheering]

is ATX really gonna care ?

[kcjenkins]

Probably not, because there is no more ATX. ATX was a great company, but since CCH bought it, it is just a brand name, and clearly not one that CCH values.

[taxxcpa]

I saw it coming when they dropped the ATX forum before the end of the tax season several years ago. That convinced me to drop ATX. For years, it had been the best software available and had excellent customer support.