RitaB

Speaking of email ding, I just got a text message ding from my client who calls me "dear". He wants to know if he owes IRS "anythang". He means "deer" doesn't he? #mylife

Agree with Jack. Sara, you just won the thread with this statement. If I had a nickel for every time I said this, I'd be in a higher tax bracket. And I'd have a sock full of nickels to hit people with.

Thank you, Joan, I dinked around with it and enlarged the font, indented the paragraphs, centered the heading and added color to it. Tabbed over on the closing. It looks better. Anyway to change the margins? I'm not finding that.

Yes, I have no doubt that it can be done. But I don't want control over that. Dear Lord, it's a space ship up in here. I don't see any reason why I oughta have to arrange the order of forms when I paid ATX to handle that. Order of forms is set in stone. Why not just put em where they go? Yanno?

This is a minor irritant, but nonetheless, WTH does form 8965 print ahead of Form 1040 when it's Attachment Sequence No. 75??? Just why? I hate stuff like that. And the font on the letters. Well, everything about the letters. Alrighty, thanks, just wanted to get that out.

Betcha they could make a dent in the national debt just by auditing all DIY returns. It doesn't take a genius to get audited, right?

Hey, my good buddy, I buy my forms from Busiforms! Small, hillbilly world, ain't it?? Yep, and I also like making my little jaunt to the Post Office, they are a hoot in thar. David and Will. I like Jurassic Park and will lay low till the revenuers come fer me. They gonna be abolished soon, I rekkon anyways.

I was gonna say. I use Peachtree I mean Sage to keep books. But I don't e-file W-2s or 1099s as there is a fee for the service, and I really don't hate the good old days of mailing things. Is it really much better to e-file W-2s and 1099s? I've just never bothered to try it, got my routine down, and old habits die hard they say. I mail all of mine at the end of February.

Hahaha love the title, and I'm picking door # 2, as the assertion on the check box means the entire household had coverage all year, not that the entire household was in the clear all year. Of course, well meaning people wind up in the clinker all the time.

Reminds me of the Slickster Attorney Ambulance Chaser commercials. You can smell the After-Shave through the TV. And that suit. GAH.

I get so annoyed at those commercials, and even more so by the fact that they actually work. It says something about the wisdom of a populace when many choose a tax preparer based on gaming practices, for lack of a better description. Yes, I know there are many fine preparers in the store front operations. That's not an important selling point. Apparently.

Thanks, Jack!

I am also missing the payer list and spent a lot of time yesterday trying to make sure it wasn't just me before I posted. I come on here and I love you guys.

I am right with you BB. I'd charge $65, no state return, also poor as church mice in Tennessee.

All due respect, Jack, they know who called and talked to the three big guns. We can't copy and paste your letter unless we had the same experience as you. Nothing is plaguing me so far. They're not going to bend over backwards to accommodate a bunch of people who don't have any idea what we're talking about. I've not called ATX three times in four years. They keep records.

I always put Health benefits and Housing Allowance in Box 14. Neither are required, but the tax preparer may not know about either of those if the W-2 preparer doesn't make him aware of it. And it's always good for the employee to know what he really made. They sometimes forget.

I think you're completely off the hook as far as responsibility goes with this in the file. He is "almost finished" on 4/29/14. Well, he was almost finished! Of course he went to someone else. Or did it himself. Put it back in his lap. It's not your fault. What is wrong with people? Yes, Abad, you are "a bad" client... It needed to be said.

And it is all your fault, you know that. (/s) I would advise him to file anyway and hope for a miracle. It also sounds to me like that person was required to file, and filing and owing/not owing are two separate things. I would file.

Dear Client: Thanks a bunch for coming in (surprise!) on Christmas Eve Eve to get me to figure the tax on the gain from the sale of stock you are about to make. A phone call would have been too easy. Thanks also for not having a clue about your basis; it's overrated anyway. Psshh. Thanks most of all for telling me you will save $10,000 "just in case" after I figured that the tax will be $6,000 if your basis is zero. Your confidence in my advice is appreciated.

Dear Client: Thank you for calling me to tell me you had another call yesterday: "Hello. This is the Internal Revenue Service with a message for (pause) YOU." No, IRS policy has not changed within the past two weeks. Yes, this is STILL not IRS, and IRS will STILL not call (pause) "YOU". They will send "YOU" a letter with your actual NAME on it. The information in the letter may be completely wrong, so bring it to "ME," but your NAME will be correct. I will call "YOU" when this changes. Yes, "YOU" will be the first to know.

Don't feel like that! I have an insurance agent friend on FaceBook putting out completely incorrect information about ACA, the penalty, etc. Do you think I'm going to correct him?? Heck, no. Then I'll have eight million non-clients sending ME questions. He's the only one getting paid to understand this crap. I resent so much having to deal with this. Yes, I know, someone will say, "Charge accordingly". Well there's no way, in Small Town, TN, that I can charge enough to cover the time I spend on ACA without losing clients.

For those times when you need to look nice, but you may have to fight the Persians. Or have a chariot race.

This continues to be the most amazing thing to me. I didn't take a guy in the summer because he drove 1135 miles a week to earn $800. Bet he got away with it, too. Most abused "expense" in the history of the universe.

I have had zero success, but I don't try very hard to get people to correct forms. I tried years ago, a few times, to get Fidelity to stop putting the code for early distribution on my late sixties age client. I gave up on that and just used Form 5329, exception to penalty on Line 2, and did the tax return correctly. That's my policy - just do the tax return correctly, and try to satisfy IRS matching as I go. Say for example, somebody puts a figure in 1099-Misc, Box 7 that they shouldn't have, I enter a figure as income on Sch C, then back it off with an explanation on p. 2. Then enter the figure wherever it should go. If my clients want to chase the issuer of an incorrect form, they can. I don't have time.