Pacun

Which one is not exposed to depreciation recapture? 1. Milk cow 2. Greenhouse 3. Barn 4. Combine In that sense, how are 2, 3, 4 used in a farm and what they mean?

A bit more than a week ago, I passed exam 1 (Individuals) and today I passed exam 2 (Corporations). I passed all 4 paper exams about 4-5 years ago and I believe the exam used to be easier. Maybe I felt it easier because you used to have previous exams available and now you don't have idea what they are asking. Another problem that I noticed is that they don't tell you how well you did unless you fail. What do you think about this? The IRS doesn't need to create new exams to test preparers this coming summer. All they have to do is to give the EA exam to everybody. If you pass the exams with a score between 60 and 80, you are a preparer. If you pass the exams with 80 to 100, you qualify as an Enrolled Agent.

I decided during Christmas that I was going to pass the EA tests before the season starts. I passed Individuals on Dec 29, and I take corporations in about 10 hours. I do not feel as prepared as I wish but I must take the exam. If I lose the $101-102 that I paid for the exam, it doesn't matter. Why am I doing it that way? I passed the four exams about 5 years ago but I didn't file form 23, and I just felt like trying it. I will also open a new LLC or S corp this year and open my doors on Jan 1, 2012. The new regulation about efiling doesn't affect me since I am pretty much in compliance. Not charging anything extra nor using any loans or credit cards for depositing refunds (Only bank accounts and paper checks on mail). Time to go back to study. One question can a $102 difference.

Nice picture. A picture is worth it a million of votes.

I do believe that we are called tax preparers, but the way it is coming down and quickly, we might be called tax filers just by signing the return. I love efiling and last year I only used paper on returns with ITIN requests and with First time home buyer credits. I did anticipate that soon States or the IRS was going to demand more efiling. I would feel really bad if I only efiled a few returns in the past because learning about efiling while under a big pressure to comply is not a good combination. We have talked about this subject before. Remember that someone was joking when it was announced that the IRS was planning to audit returns every 5 years? I said "do not under estimate the power of computers". Efiling will give the IRS, the funds and resources to audit a high percentage of returns every year and auditing everybody every 5 years is NOT beyond reach. The tax preparation profession has changed 5 days ago and it has changed significantly and FOREVER. Soon the IRS will know what kind of returns we prepared, what exams we have passed and it will match our qualifications vs returns prepared. IRS will have a pretty goods estimate on how much our business made from tax preparation. Also the IRS will slowly stop hiring data entry personnel and will hire more revenue agents. As you know revenue agents pretty much billable and data entry personnel are overhead. That's what companies are doing outside anyways and they IRS (as many government agencies) have been slow in adjusting to the www and technologies of the 21 century. As someone said, CPAs will have a lot of opportunities and as long as they stay out of trouble, they will make a lot of money with these new opportunities.

According to the statistics rules you only need 32 random votes to have a pretty good representation of what the whole population wants. It sounds funny but it is scientifically proven. Do you think when they predicted that Barrack Hussein Obama was going to win they polled everybody? I voted for splitting the forums but I think we are going to stick to one but we will use it more efficiently.

Based on the votes, I believe we will end up with only one forum. Now we have to be religious on labeling our topics accordingly and when you want to say hi to a "coming back" member, please start a new topic and leave the tax subject to continue. Based on these voting results, I feel like they way it used to be with CDs... you bought a CD for some good songs but then you got some other songs that you didn't like. EXCEPT that this CD is free and I am very thankful to ERC, KC and those who administer it. How about donating our first tax return fee to this forum, after all, most of us (if not all of us) haven't donated lately?

Back ups should be done regularly (depends on your business), should be tested at least once a year and a full back up should be kept offsite. Full back up means (in this context) ONLY the database folder for the current year. Since I only do taxes and on a part time basis, I install my tax software at home and at my two work places. On Feb 14, I make a full back up from my tax computer and copy it on the other 2 computers and test it. I do another similar backup on April 15th(last day of taxes) and in December. I would feel really bad if my tax computer crashes (let me rephrase that... my hard drive crashes or gets stolen) on the first two weeks of February and on the first two weeks of April but I will survive. Keep in mind that the probabilities of that happening is about two percent.

Adjustments are for 2011 NOT 2010.

about 4 hours ago, I read the email below from NATP. I have checked the 2010 1040 form from the IRS and it doesn't have any of the changes that NATP is talking about below. (I have not seen any mention of this before today ANYWHERE) This is from IRS: (As we speak) Form 1040 Department of the Treasury—Internal Revenue Service U.S. Individual Income Tax Return 2010 42 Exemptions. Multiply $3,650 by the number on line 6d . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 This is from NATP Inflation Adjusted Exemptions and Deductions Personal exemptions and standard deductions for tax year 2011 were released by the IRS. These inflation adjustments relate to eight tax provisions that were either modified or extended by the Tax Relief Act. Some of the adjustments include: The value of each personal and dependent exemption available to most taxpayers is $3,700, a $50 increase from 2010. The new standard deduction is $11,600 for married couples filing a joint return, a $200 increase; $5,800 for singles and married individuals filing separately, a $100 increase; and $8,500 for heads of household, a $100 increase. The additional standard deduction for blind people and senior citizens is $1,150 for married individuals and $1,450 for singles and heads of household, each an increase of $50. Nearly two out of three taxpayers take the standard deduction, rather than itemizing deductions, such as mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes. Tax-bracket thresholds increase for each filing status. For a married couple filing a joint return, for example, the taxable-income threshold separating the 15-percent bracket from the 25-percent bracket is $69,000, up from $68,000 in 2010. The maximum earned income tax credit (EITC) for low- and moderate- income workers and working families rises to $5,751, up from $5,666 in 2010. The maximum income limit for the EITC rises to $49,078, up from $48,362 in 2010. The credit varies by family size, filing status and other factors, with the maximum credit going to joint filers with three or more qualifying children. The modified adjusted gross income threshold at which the lifetime learning credit begins to phase out is $102,000 for joint filers, up from $100,000, and $51,000 for singles and heads of household, up from $50,000.

I think the forms are not ready yet and that's why you don't roll over properly.

Good points. I tried to bring the subject back to Taxes by writing only one political sentence and going back to how the IRS is not ready because they didn't anticipate anything. It is funny how we elect these people because they promise to cut government spending and as you said, they get addicted.

I tried to log on to myATX and it is under maintenance. I was sent to my atx blog http://myatx.blogspot.com/ and I found this very helpful video. Tuesday, November 30, 2010 Installing ATX 2010 on a network This quick presentation is designed to help you and your network technician successfully install ATX 2010 on your network. This presentation is also designed to assist you and your network technician in mapping your workstations and conducting a quick test to insure ATX is installed and working properly on your network. Click the following link to view the presentation: https://www.brainshark.com/cch/ATXNetworkInstall Posted by Kim Manuel at 3:27 PM

Democrats should be at fault. But I would also blame the IRS because they should have had the software ready the way they released it last year since not much was going to change. This is the first year I see that the tax table, the standard deduction and the personal exemptions are the same as the previous year. If they didn't wait to the last minute, they could be almost ready now. In any event, if they were ready based on last year's form releases, the changes could be incorporated with no much software programming effort. Most of the new changes are for companies anyways.

I always wondered what HSBC meant and it is interesting what I got from Wikipedia: The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation HSBC Holdings plc is a global financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.[3] As of 2010, it is the world's sixth-largest banking and financial services group and the world's eighth-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine.[7][8] It has around 8,000 offices in 87 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America and around 100 million customers.[4][9] As of 30 June 2010 it had total assets of $2.418 trillion, of which roughly half were in Europe, a quarter in the Americas and a quarter in Asia.[6] HSBC Holdings plc was founded in London in 1991 by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to act as a new group holding company and to enable the acquisition of UK-based Midland Bank.[1] The origins of the bank lie in Hong Kong and Shanghai, where branches were first opened in 1865.[2]

For a minute, I thought you were referring to/about your clients. I don't use RALs and I hate when people have hold their W-2s until April and they inquire about RALs. I am glad H&R Block is not goint to use RALs this year and that will make people think about the amount of money the banks make on those loans.

I had problems over the weekend but it is working now.

Nice video. I hope he actually takes it to the beach this coming summer as he said. We are not against any posting on the forum. There is a water cooler at work and trust me, there are times that I don't go to drink water because I am busy with deadlines. There are other times, that I do have time for the water cooler. Same is true for this forum. A lot of people are busy and if they had the choice to see only business/tax stuff, they will appreciate. My suggestion is that we could have a choice to see: 1.- Everything, 2.- Not birth day posting and and 3.- no NT postings. I always appreciate postings like this one since we are free because a lot of soldiers have lost their lives and we all appreciate our armed forces' sacrifice. I post NT stuff all the time, but a little adjustment to this forum will be beneficial for all of us.

Can we have a choice of selecting: I don't want to see postings with titles "Happy Birthday" or "NT"? I understand you are on vacation so a March answer is perfect. This is what I commented on another posting titled "Where are the gurus?" "I agree with Old Jack. We need to separate tax and business matters on this forum. Normally I only check the first page. I have missed important information because my first page is filled with Happy Birthday and other "important" stuff. I have not listed by date of birth because of that. I do not have a face book account and this is the ONLY forum I visit. I visit this one because it is a learning experience and there are many knowledgable people on this forum. If the forum is filled with "important", non-tax stuff, our gurus will simply stop coming. I am pretty sure that during this tax season all of us will donate to the forum. I am sure if donations are better, this forum can be better. One suggestion is that you should be able to select, I want to see "Happy Birthday" or "NT" postings. That way, if you uncheck those two categories, you will not see anything that includes "happy birthday" or "NT" on the title. "

It is hard to believe that the IRS will not be ready in time since the software doesn't need much tayloring. Standard deduction, personal exceptions, tax brackets and many other items are the same as they were in 2009.

I always have problems with DC, my "state". I have workarounds every year. What I do, I don't waste time, I tell them that DC is not ready but I can file their Federal, which in most cases is the bigger refund (remember that we are talking about people who file early). I tell them that they need to come back in a month to have their DC efiled. I efile everything for the state since ONLY the first time home buyer and ITIN requests were not allowed to efile for Federal. None of those applied for DC. I had to wait for ITINs anyways and the other credit didn't affect DC filing. It works for me because DC can be efiled by itself. If filing your state/locality is the issue, file that return only and wait for the federal. Amend you state/locality as needed and file the federal in March. I am sure your clients will understand after the media starts its own "panicking postings". As long as your locality, have the amend "feature" you can find a way get the same results.For example, if you have a client who has 4K tuition deduction (and they need to lower their AGI), you can suggest that they can put 4K in an IRA before April 15 and file their taxes. If needed, you can amend and collect money back from the IRS or break even. Each case will be different. Who knows, maybe the client likes the idea of putting 4K in their IRA. They have until April 1st to make up their mind (I need the extra 14 days to amend if needed). Is this the first time you guys experience this? We see it almost every year in the last 2-3 years. Even if the IRS has all the forms ready, ATX drags its feet with my state. All the time, forms are draft and not ready for paper filing or simply not ready for filing.

FAFSA users can file and then amend. IRS is not postponing the start filing date for anyone. They said that if you are filing for those 3 credits/forms you cannot file. As I stated earlier, in most cases, the percentage of people who itemize, are teachers or students that pay less than 8K in higher education AND file before mid-Feb is very slim. Also, I tell my people not to visit me before Feb 15th because everybody wants to have their taxes done the last week of January and the first week of Feb. This will give me a chance to tell my PITA clients to come back in a month because the IRS doesn't have schedule A ready. Hopefully they will not come back!!!

I had a windows XP 32 bit-computer. In December 2009, I bought a new Windows 7 64-bit computer and I installed ATX 2007 and then copied the data for 2007. I tested 2007 by opening a couple of returns and made a little change on a form and resave it. I installed 2008 and copied the data for 2008 and tested it. Finally I installed 2009 and tested it by rolling over a return and worked on it. NO PROBLEMS. You should do the same. If 2009 is working properly, then you know it is a flaw with the new, 2010 software package. For those who have both programs installed but installed them backwards, please open a return in 2009, save it and try to roll it over to 2010. As a last choice, you should install 2010 on the old computer, roll over all the returns from 2009, test it and then copy the whole database folder to the new Windows 7 computer. I should admit that I am not that creative and I let the program dictate where it wants the data by default. Regarding the back up, if a tax paperer forgets to make sure that ATX data is backed up because it is NOT under documents, something is wrong with his/her "computer". The only other thing that I can think of is that the account that runs ATX is not your account that that account doesn't have full permissions to your profile (I don't expect this paragragh to make much sense anyways).

I will try. Thank you.

Correct. Those with higher AGI are not desperate for the money/refund. They can wait until mid/end February and their refund is most of the time low. Most of them have investment and are waiting for other documents anyways. I am talking about the ones with low incomes who file as soon as their W-2s are distributed.