Crank

Well this is not good. When I renewed, prior to May 1st, I was told by Will 1-855-880-1040 x3451 that I would be getting the TRX (RedGear) software. Also, who is "newbie" above that posted the link to the ripoff report website. Its his first post. Is it the person who wrote the post?

I renewed for 2012 and they did confirm that it will be the same RedGear program they offered in the past. This is in addition to there own in-house product that they have been working on.

Thanks Mike. Time will tell. Not to come off sounding flip but I dont really see the "U.S. Army experience" as relevant to the position of "Technical / Tax Support Director". I get the feeling that they hired a warm body with no experience and needed something to say about this person. Thats like saying we hired a Director of Marketing who has a lifetime of experience with shopping.

Speaking of buttons, whats the diffference between "Online Tax Training" and "Online Training"

I tried getting clients to take digital copies this year (on CD) and only 2 out of almost 100 went for it. My client base is from 18-83 and all but 2 or 3 have computers ... even the 83.yo. but they still want the hard copy in the folder. One problem is that we have a local earned income tax and that cant be efiled .... easily, so I have to prepare at least one of those for each client with a w-2 or sch C. This year I started scanning all client docs and that added a lot to my time per return ... going to be rethinking that for next year. But I like having a copy of all of their doc if I need to refer back.

Has anyone renewed for 2012 yet? The deadline for the TRX Pro - 1040 Premium package at the $299 price is May 1, 2012. The rep I spoke to said its the same deal as last year. You can purchase the TRX Pro (TaxWorks) and prior to the ship date you can switch to the their in house version if you want to. He claims that the in house version is more polished for 2012 and will be ready for prime time where as the 2011 product wasn't quite ready. He claimed that it has a very good conversion product in regard to TaxWorks version. Even with the addditional problems this year I am going to renew for 2012. The saving is significant over ATX. Over the summer I will download the in house version and see how it compares to the Tax Works version. They claim that it is very flexible and can be both input based (like TaxWorks) and forms based (like ATX). Seems a bit far reaching if you ask me but the demo will be the deciding factor.

Ive been at this officially for about 18 years (30+ if you count family, friends all they way back to my first return at age 14) and Ive tried newspaper, television, radio, direct mail and handing out flyers. Out of those I got the best response thorugh handing out flyers door to door. For a few years in the beginning I had a flyer designed and had a few thousand printed. I hired a few college kids and placed them in peoples doors and on car windshields. This gave me about a 4+% return rate, which is about in line with direct mail but cheaper. I did that the first 5 years to build a base. Word of mouth continued to bring in clients at about the same rate. A few years ago I decided to try something different. I told my clients that if they refered a new client I would refund 10% of their current year tax fee for every new client they refered to me. Additionally the new client would also receive a 10% discount on their first year tax prep fee. This worked so well I have continued it to this day. After the regular filing deadline (4/15) I send out the referal refund checks with a letter thanking them for their support. I send out another round after returns on extension have been filed. Additionally I send out a monthly tax update email in which I mention the referal rebates to keep it in their mind. People love to get money back andit shows that they are satisfied with your work.

Yes, THANK YOU to all the great members of this forum. Collectively you all are a great resource, sounding board and overall great individuals. Hope to see everyone back next year.

Yes, I do miss it. But I dont miss the head aches. Had a client email me today asking if we deducted several items. The thing is I just went over the return with him last night and addressed the very same items. Either he wasn't paying attention or couldn't comprehend was was being discussed. And someone somewhere employes this individual .... amazing!

Interesting, a few years ago I found my very first tax return for 1975. I was in high school and only had a few w-2s but I was amazed that the form itself was about 1/2 of an 8.5' x11" sheet of paper. I may frame it for my office.

Nope, havent had that happen, but then again I dont print many full returns to pdf but I have done a few

And, the major CPA firms ... Well at least Deloitte, Grant Thornton and PWC offer free webinars. Deloitte has one or two almost every Monday-Thursday usually 1 - 1.5 hours long. I already have> 50 hours this year an have met the 8 tax CPE and about 1/2 of the 16 accounting CPE. I need 80 every two years and at least 20 in a year.

I belive it wasnt there. The program seems to have issues processing. It may have been included with the return but not showing up in the list. Every so often when the program starts acting weird like that I close out of everything. Run ccleaner a few times to clear out all temp files and such and reboot. Maybe even do the whole process twice and then after its fully rebooted open up the program and it appears to be back to normal. I have a fairly new machine but I have a lot open (three tax programs, excel spread sheets, several browser tabs, email and radio playing so after a few hours of processing many returns things seem to get strange in the 2011 TRX program.

I agree. The renewal date is two weeks from now to get the $299. Im not sure what happened but 2010 went very smooth (my first year with TRX) and this year had quite a bit of problems including an unresolved 1099R, code 4 that should not have been carrying to an 8606 but was. No way around it. Thats the good thin with ATX you coul always override a field but this one has no fix. I called them several time and they said they fixed it but never did. But it worked just fine on the 2010 return. I have two weeks to make up my mind.

Good to know. Thanks Terry.

Thanks for the comments! Well, the copies he has are watermarked with the work COPY and not signed by me but my information is in the paid preparer section. He could just copy the information to blank forms and paper file them but I doubt he's that intelligent. I would lke to let him hang himself but the first two replies are what I will probably end up doing. I can not wait for this filing season to be over. It has been horrendous with many being late, missing appointments and quite a few that have been plain rude. Many were very upset that the $400 "Making Work Pay" credit was removed and they had a lower refund or had to pay. I mentioned several times in my quarterly emails too, but they didnt remember it (or didnt know what it was). Its the first time in over twenty years that I said it may be my last. Strange as this year is, last year was one of the most enjoyable filing seasons I can remember.

Same here. I just finshed a new client with almost 20 pages of transactions. And he wasnt too happy when he found out the captial loss carryforward. This single 29 year old had been trading like crazy, approx $1.5 million in sales with almost $500K in losses and $470K of those were wash sales.

Through a strange set of circumstances, and my own stupidy and trusting I let a new client leave my office with "copies" of his returns but no payment or signed and dated 8879's. After we were finished but before signing the 8879s he claimed to have forgotten his checkbook stating he would drop a check off the next day. Well the next day has turned into a few weeks with different excuses and I am tired of speaking with him. I dont think he realizes that his returns haven't been filed and at this point if he doesnt pay by the 17th I dont plan on filing them. I can't find anything that states that I am obligated to continue to call him for payment or file his returns. As a matter of fact I cant file his returns without signed & DATED 8879s. So do I have any further obligation to contact him or......Should I let him hang himself?

Sorry Jack but I'm not getting your point about "Your revenge at them should be CONSIDERATE to YOU as well."

Oh, the one thing that really set me off was a client with a sch c business, upset that he owed so much more in taxes vs. the prior year due to a $20k increase in net income. He didnt like my estimates for 2012 (100% of 2011 taxes) to aviod any penatlies. So he told me that his income was unusually high this year to due to one big city contract that he wouldnt have next year. So I recalc'd his estimates and then noticed that his gross income stayed the almost the same from 2010 to 2011 but that his reduced labor expenses was the result of the $20M net income increase. When I told him that he got extremely defensive and was almost to the point of shouting and ranting for a good minute non-stop. He finally settled on 90% of 2011 taxes for his 2012 estimates. I got a really funny feeling from him that something wasnt right. Hey, Im not auditing him and he has to sign the return. I kept my cool over the whole thing but he's going to be paying more from now on due to that little temper tantrum.

Thursday 4/5 was a complete horror show for me. It started out good and then went crazy after noon. Lots of clients dropping off before Easter, clients calling and showing up with missing docs/items and a few that decided they needed to pickup that day. Sheesh! Wife actually told me to stop around 9pm because I "looked like hell". My son came home from college for Easter break and said the same thing. I should reconsider my extension fee but my fees are so reasonable (vs. Block & Other CPAs) and I am so flexible and accomodating with being available to clients that it's like my little piece of revenge for them being inconsiderate.

Another off topic rant but this tax season has been quite abnormal with many of my regulars still promising to get their stuff to me "soon". Its going to be a killer last week. I think with the filing deadline being April 17th this year people think they have extra time so they are procrastinating more than usual. They are going to hate to pay for an extension only to have their returns completed the next week. Its their own fault. They think that because I work out of my home that they can drop by anytime .... and I wont even get into how bad the late/missed appointments are this year ...sheesh!

Im like you Kea. I have hours from 8-8 M-F and 12-5 on Sat & Sun but many days Im working until 10pm. Thankfully I havent had any issues that couldnt wait until TRX tech support hours. But as the practice grows I can see it being a problem.

I dont enter it. I deduct it from the billed amount to arrive at the tuition for the year.

Cambodia? Well that's comforting. lol