JJStephens

Eric--- double dittos to everything everyone else has said. Thanks, amigo! If we're going to go first name, I'm Jerry (the second J in my handle is for my BWJ (beautiful wife Jeanie).

I heard somewhere the glue balls cause you to lose your memory . . . but I forget where I heard that

I previously emailed Zach but got no response. I tried calling the toll free number on Tuesday (4/2). Was automatically put on hold. After almost 20 minutes I had to give up. I'll try again when I have some time.

Like many of you, I'm a one person shop. Having this resource is priceless. Even the 'laugh of the day' entries are greatly appreciated! They help me come for air every once in a while. Thanks for the donation reminder. I thought I had donated earlier this year . . . but couldn't find a record of having done so. Just clicked the donate button. I urge others to do likewise.

Check out Circular 230--page 24 Section 10.31: "A practitioner who prepares tax returns may not endorse or otherwise negotiate any check issued to a client by the government in respect of a Federal tax liability." I'm reasonably sure having a refund direct deposited into one's account would be functionally the same as endorsing or otherwise negotiating that refund check.

I've been a preparer for 27 years; and an EA for 5. I've been on this forum since shortly after it started and the original 'official' ATX forum (the one that was shut down on April 5 several years ago giving rise to this forum) for years before that. What amazes me is the wealth of knowledge that's out there. You folks amaze me (admittedly, some more than others!). I've gotten great answers to virtually every question I've asked. I was just poking around and looking at some older Q&As. People quoting regs, and code and all kinds of stuff. Amazing! What I'm curious about, when some of these questions come up do you know all this stuff off the top of your head (like one person quoted a section of the Form 1065 instructions) or when these tough questions come up do you take the time to research the answers? Either way, I'm impressed . . . and grateful!!!

I just called that number--got a message saying the phone number is incorrect. Are you sure that's the right number?

I've been doing taxes for 27 years. That has happened to me only once--several years ago. I remember the sick feeling. Feel for ya!

Would you mind checking my name?!?!?

Not yet. I've been a bit busy of late . Will probably go that route after April 15.

What a mess--well said! Fixing it is a bit of a hassle. On the other hand, most church bookkeepers don't have the ability or inclination to handle it so it might become a new engagement for you. Clergy taxes are my specialty. I run into this situation at least half a dozen times every year. I've written a paper that explains the issues and the correction process. If you PM me I'd be happy to send a copy of it to you. The bottom line is that they have to file Forms 941X for each quarter in error to recover the SS taxes paid in error (a portion of which MUST be refunded to the employee) and must also issue corrected W2s/W3s. That will likely also result in amended personal tax returns for the affected clergy taxpayers.

KC-- congrats on getting that done (even if it was through others). Think you could use your pull to work on the NCAA . . . or maybe even Congress?!?!?

I've requested a refund dozens of times dating back to last June. In the past month or so I emailed Doug and someone else (whose name I got from this forum but I can't remember at the moment). So far I haven't even received an acknowledgment much less a check. I'm happy for those of you who did, but I have this sick feeling I never will.

Your post doesn't really have quite enough info to give specific suggestions. Here's some general info that might be helpful. Clergy have dual tax status--that is, they are almost always considered a employee for income tax purposes but are always (100% of the time) considered self-employed for social security tax purposes. Therefore, their employing church should not withhold SS or Medicare tax on their salary. They to, however, have to pay self-employment social security tax on their earnings (including housing allowance) unless they 'opt out' by filing Form 4361. Use the clergy worksheet to determine the amount subject to SECA tax. Form 4361 can be filed by clergy with a deeply held religious conviction that it is inappropriate to receive govt benefits (e.g., social security benefits) related to their service as a clergy person. The deadline for filing is the due date of the second tax return on which the person has at least $400 of clergy-related earnings. Hope this helps. If I misunderstood your post, perhaps you could give a little more info.

Random streams of consciousness follow: Wow! Sounds like we have a fledgling social revolution in the works! I'm beginning to think it might be easier to just pass the Fair Tax and cancel tax season altogether. In prior tax seasons I lost my sister (April 8) and many years later, my mother (March 17). I somehow managed to muddle through. In fact, I think having to deal with taxes might have even helped me get through it. Alas, my Buckeyes just lost so I no longer have a reason to live (at least not until football season starts). So I guess it's back to the stack of returns in the hopper.

I love sports. March Madness is an almost irresistible magnet. Ditto for The Masters. Being the astute observer that I am, I've noticed that every year both of those events fall right in the most hectic part of tax season. I stream the events in a corner of my second monitor but that's not nearly as satisfying as the big screen TV. This morning I'm bleary eyed from having stayed up to watch one of the late games last night (the team I was rooting for lost--deep sigh). So anyway, here's my idea. What do you suppose the chances are that we could talk the NCAA and the Masters into rescheduling their events after April 15? Shouldn't be that hard to do, right?!?! I'd see if the IRS would change their date but that seems to require an act of Congress . . . and getting them to act on anything other than a congressional pay raise is nigh impossible. Yeah, I know. Dream on. Anyone else have any tax season requests?

Did my first one at age 50. Went so well I got a ten year pass. Alas, time is running out. In another year and a half I get to have all that fun all over again.

Just for fun I once created a new throw-away yahoo email account and responded to one of these. In my response I made up a lot of stuff that wasn't even in the original email. I had some fun with it for about a month stringing the guy along. I kept changing the story he was telling me. For example, he told me he was in London. In my reply I said that I was jealous that he got to live in Rome. He agreed that Rome was a wonderful place to live. It was hilarious--he agreed with everything I said. He couldn't even keep his own story straight. He kept begging me to 'do the right thing' and wire the money he needed so he could proceed with processing my inheritance. He finally became angry with me and accused me of trying to scam him! Told me I was keeping him from being able to feed his family. Needless to say, my sympathy lasted less than a nanosecond.

This is a disaster in more ways than one. Client owns a rental house in a another state. A car (uninsured) crashed into the house. The main repair was to remove & replace the front exterior wall and one interior wall (including doors and windows) and to stabilize the roof. Cost to repair was $16,351 of which $11,614 was paid by client's insurance. His out-of-pocket was $4737. Expense or capitalize? My instinct is to expense it (did not extend the life or increase the value).

I used the Parsons software for several years--best I've ever used. Like you, I was ticked big time with Intuit for killing it. I didn't realize they were resurrected as Second Story/TaxACT. I just googled Bob Parsons, the founder of Parsons Technology. I was shocked to discover he was the founder of GoDaddy.com!!! Check him out at www.bobparsons.me

Because I do mostly clergy returns, I run into this kind of situation a couple times every year. Mike's suggestion to enter it as a negative entry on line 21 is what I've always done. It has been questioned only once by the IRS and then an explanatory letter resolved the issue.

Yeah, I remember. It was about ten years ago. My son was my guinea pig too. It was with a great deal of fear and trepidation that I clicked transmit. It worked! In fact, that first year I e-filed about 30 or 40 returns and virtually all were accepted on the first attempt. This year . . . I've had more first attempt rejects (about 6 or 7) than I did in the last five years combined!

My default printer is PDFactory. When I click on "Client Copy" and deselect Filing Copy, and deselect Billing Invoice, etc. I still get the stuff I didn't want. I've gone through on a number of occasions very carefully. It still does whatever it wants to do. I'm glad to be back to ATX (vs what I had to endure the last two years) but I miss the old version. This version takes me about a third again longer to do a return than the old version did--mostly just from waiting for it to open/close forms, print, etc.

I was part of the TRX debacle. This year I came back to ATX (had used it for 15 yrs prior to departing to get a better price). ATX was kind enough to send me a copy of the 2011 software so that I could convert all my clients last fall. When I converted my clients from the previous software package to ATX 2011 there was apparently a glitch. Virtually every client I have rolled to 2012 has a substantial--but bogus--Form 8801 credit. Do any of you have any idea how to suppress Form 8801 being included in rollovers from 2011? In the last three years I've only had two clients who got caught by the AMT--I can just manually add the 8801 for those. None of the others should have any kind of AMT credit for 2012. Thanks for any assistance you can offer.

Whenever I print a return to my PDF rendering software ATX, I select certain pages to print and others to not print (some of them I come back & print later to build my package in the specific order I want). It prints all the pages I select but almost always prints a half dozen pages that I specifically de-selected. For example, it prints at least two copies of the billing invoice (one as the first page and another as the final page. It sometimes adds a third copy somewhere in the middle). Same with the Tax Summary page and a handful of others. It just seems to have a mind of its own. I've just gone in and deleted the unwanted pages but that can be a hassle (many of my returns have 40-80 pages of forms, schedules and worksheets). Anyone else having this problem? Anyone know of a solution?