Kea

I tried inputting this return in the 2006 ATX program since it has a category for line 21 input that includes NOL carry forward. It does not generate a 1045. The taxable income before the $11K NOL was $49K, so there is not need to carry to 2009 tax return. Do I need to file the 1045 Schedule B in this case? I am concerned about filing it. TaxWise shows the taxable income before NOL (line 2 of Schedule as the "current taxable income" (with NOL) + the amount of the NOL. It does not adjust for the difference in the taxable portion of the Social Security income nor does it adjust the amount of the estimated sales tax (which is based on income). I've only done NOL carry backs before and not carry forwards, so I'm a little unsure of these adjustments. But if the 1045 Schedule B isn't filed, it's a moot point. Thanks

Yes, paper file with W-7s is the way to go. Tell him to be ready for a long wait. I did one a few years ago and the refund took several months.

I was able to amend in TRX Taxwise. So, I guess it's ATX. Good luck.

I have a new client that had an NOL last year. She (or her previous tax preparer) elected to forgo the carryback. I'm not sure the proper way to bring this into the 2008 TaxWise program. I added a 1045 and entered the NOL amount in the blank near the top of the Schedule B page. On the 1040, line 21, I linked from the "Type" line to a scratch pad and entered "2007 NOL carryforward" and the amount. Is this the proper place to put it? The red instructions mention NOL statements and a place to manually enter an amount (which actually tells you to manually enter on the statement). I'm not sure where this statement is. Where do I need to enter info, and where will the software carry it? Even though I have the basic info on 1045 Schedule B, it looks like I may have to do some manual calculations. (Not sure, I haven't verified all entries yet.) Thanks

I had a client who did some housecleaning and babysitting for a client. After prodding, the employer furnished her a W-2. It rejected for the same reason you listed. The employer did not get the EIN until after the 1st of that year. In my case, it had to be paper filed.

I have one I'm working on right now. Carrying back 2 years works fine. They were in a higher tax bracket that year. If the 2008 return gets signed and turned in in the next day or 2, can I still use the 2 year carryback without specifying an election? Speaking of procedures.... I just e-file the regular 1040 and attachments without the 1045, right? I know the 1045 has to be mailed in. Thanks

I pretty much agree with your comments. But here are a few things that I have found in a few of the returns I've prepared: On my own return, I have assets that I depreciate. You always have to check those after a rollover. But this time I found a new "asset" - apparently from an 1120S K1. I've never had one of these for my personal return, so I really don't know where it came from. I've had 2 or 3 include an 8801 - AMT carryforward. These are for clients that have never been subject to AMT. One actually included a $40 credit. Just keep your eyes open.

Thanks for your help & I hope you are feeling better. I've been limping along using the TaxWise default .pdf. But as Guy can attest, it doesn't always work, either. At this point it is the only thing I can usually print to (and perhaps my old - very slow - HP4500). I'm not sure what I'll do if that one fails completely. Thanks so much.

Hi Kyle, No, not yet. I've been meaning to check back with y'all (OK, yes, I'm in the South). Just never have time except late at night. Did you have any luck with your contacts at TRX? Thanks so much.

Terry, you are correct. I didn't think my statement through. The Schedule C clients I have helped only buy their materials / goods as they use them I've not done one that maintains an inventory before. But I do agree the furniture needs to be converted to personal use. I'm just not sure where to report that - income, supplies (as a negative) or somewhere else. Thanks

I know the law you are speaking about. They do fall under the $1million cap. (I would have counted it as COGS.) But how do I now "un-deduct" this prior expense for items not sold? Especially if the business is not continued.

New self-employed client sold furniture in previous years. Her last years' return shows $7000 supply expense, but no assets, inventory or COGS. Due to illness of spouse, my client did not conduct any business in 2008 and may not resume that business. However, she had bought furniture in 2007 that she has not sold. The previous preparer included these purchases in "supplies." How do I reclaim these expenses that are now not legitimate? Granted it should never have been counted as supplies in the first place. Do I show income for the value of the remaining furniture - say, by her buying her own furniture for personal use? Do I show a negative value in supplies - implying they were "returned"? I'm not sure I want to recommend amending last year. I'm afraid it might open a whole can of worms. The additional income this year will not affect her, since she has an $11K NOL from 2007 carrying forward to 2008. There is no W-2 income, only 1099R income and Social Security. How would you handle? Thanks

I don't even remember how long it took for me to figure out how to delete a return. It was one of the few things I learned from the book. 90 minutes doesn't sound too bad. I'm currently using 3 3rd party .pdf generators (5 if you count the new versions of 2 of the old ones). I have pdf factory, doPDF, and docuPrinter. I prefer doPDF. In Intellitax, last year, it would save each form of the return in a new file. So printing one return would generate multiple .pdf files. DocuPrinter took care of that problem by letting you append the new file to the existing file. The downside was that it was a trial version and stamped it's name across the bottom of each page. A lot of people really like pdf Factory. It seems fine, but I haven't used it much. 90% of the time I print a tax return to one of those 3, I don't get anything. Sometimes I get the message asking where to save it, sometimes not. The printer icon will show in the systray and tell me it is 17 (or however many) pages. About 10% of the time I get a copy of the cover letter and privacy policy (something else I could not find without help). At this point, I can usually print to .pdf program TaxWise defaults to (not sure what program they use). Even that's not a given. I just hope it doesn't stop on me. Once I get that generated, I can print the .pdf file wherever I want. Oh, and TRX tech people told me that TaxWise doesn't particularly like multi-function printers. Just in case that helps with anyone else's problems.

Thanks. I finally just did the GA return sort-of manually. The software pulled in some of the info correctly, but there were several places I had to do an override. Word of caution for GA returns. Even when you fill out Schedule III to calculate the GA taxable income, the software does not carry it back to page 2 line 15. There might be an easier way to get the software to calculate all this correctly, but I found it easier to just override where it was wrong. I just sent the e-file. I hope it is accepted! Since you are in FL, I imagine you get more GA returns than I do. I usually only get 1 or 2. I also do about 3 or 4 for CA. One of them is self-employed. I had so much fun in ATX when she moved from TX. The depreciation is done differently than the Federal. ATX handled pretty well, but I had a long learning curve checking it.

This is probably pretty basic, but I live in TX and don't do many state returns. TP is resident of GA. In late April he got married and wife moved from TX to GA. I know how to split income and proportion everything for GA. But I'm not sure how to fill out the TaxWise main info sheet and PY res worksheet. Spouse has W-2 from TX but has not started working in GA. She has interest on bank account that shows TX address, but she says they counted it as GA since she moved in 1st half of year. Since there are 2 lines by Full Year Res, are they for TP and Spouse (respectively)? One person couldn't be a full-year resident of 2 states, could they? So I input GA on the left line and left the 2nd line blank. For the 2 lines by the PY resident, I'm guessing now this is for the various PY states? Here I put TX / GA. Is this right? On the PY worksheet, it splits the wages correctly between states, but not the interest. Do I override here or somewhere else? On the Res / NR worksheet, it has Federal and Resident state = GA / ___ and all income is show in the TP and Spouse columns of this section. The non-resident sections are blank. I believe this might be correct. Line 4 of the GA form 500 shows 1 (resident), but I have overridden to "3" per the GA instruction booklet. But do the lines for the dates of residency apply (they are no longer red after I change to "3")? TP and spouse have different dates. Schedule III on page 6 of the Form 500 is including the interest in the non-GA income. I overwrote that field but it leaves the total on line 8. So I also have to overwrite line 8. Pro-rated GA taxable income does not carry to line 15 of GA 500. Under line 12 of this form TaxWise asks for the # of months if PY. Not sure what I need here. I'm sure this is all very easy and I'm just missing something. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

Yes, it is easy. I could do it up until last week. Then either the software or the printer or the computer or ???? decided it would only do it when it felt like it. Which means it usually doesn't. The great folks at VMSUS worked on it about 3 hours Friday and finally decided it must be related to a software update. The TRX people worked on it over 2 hours last night and couldn't figure it out. I'm not having printing problems with Firefox, Thunderbird, Excel, Word or Adobe. So it does appear to be a TaxWise issue. It's some kind of bug somewhere but we haven't been able to find it yet. It's pretty frustrating! I agree with you about the Schedule A, too. I have to really read the lines closely to make sure I put data in the right places.

I had assets in Intellitax last year listed as GDS 150. Now that they were rolled over into TaxWise, they show up as "Farm" (yes it links to a Sch F.) I haven't looked yet to see what the differences are. I need to find out if I leave the software with "Farm" or keep to the original method of "GDA 150" - or if it even matters!

I switched to a Vista machine and moved 1998 - 2006 ATX to it. I think I had to jump through some hoops on the 1998 - 1999, but I think the rest went OK. I no longer remember what I had to do, but ATX was pretty helpful. I did it off-season -- that was a big help.

The W-2 not calculating bothers me, too. If your boxes 1,3,&5 are different, you have to tell it not to calculate. Then, it can't even calculate 4 based on 3 or 6 based on 5. Is there a way to calculate a value in a field? If so, I haven't found it yet. In some programs, if you start with an "=" it will calculate, others you just hit + or * or whatever calculation you want to make. Sometimes the client has 2 mortgage statements and I like to add in the software. I guess I'll just keep using the trusty calculator (or just add in my head). I've used the "print to PDF" button - but I prefer my own .pdf writers. You know, little things like being able to name your file what you want. But last week that stopped, along with printing to my Canon multi-function printer. Usually (but not always) I can print to their "print to PDF" and I can sometimes print to one of my older printers. Then again, sometimes when I print all I get is the cover letter and privacy policy, sometimes nothing at all. I was with tech support for over 2 hours tonight and it is still not fixed. She did mention that TaxWise doesn't like multi-function printers. Well, it printed OK up until last week. She also didn't think it was due to a problem when updating. The red line feature is very cool. To print the 9325s you can select to do that automatically when accepted. It's a choice in the printer options. That was fine until I had printer issues. I couldn't figure out how to print them otherwise. The nice tech lady explained that tonight, too. Once my printer is working, I have to run the acknowledgment report and at some stage in there it should print automatically again. Haven't tried it yet, because you don't see the 9325 on screen.

You are correct. I hope you wear protective gear when you tell him about his reduced refund.

Clients (married couple with 2 kids - Dad in the military with some non-taxable combat pay) came in Thursday evening. I had already asked them to bring the amount of stimulus payment with them. They hadn't been able to find it in their records and used the IRS site. I should say "tried" to use the IRS site but it was down each time they had tried on Wednesday. We tried again in my office -- still down. They were pretty sure they got the whole amount, so I sent the e-file that way. Next day they called and said they finally got on site and it was $300 less than what was allowed for '08. I told them the return had already been accepted so I couldn't change the worksheet. I'm sure IRS knows the amount they sent last year. Do they get the remaining $300 this year automatically? Or, is there something I can do to request the additional $300? Even though the worksheet is wrong, it's not asking for more stimulus payment than eligible. Would this also cause a delay in refund? Thanks

I would hope the software would know to not add 10% penalty based on age. Yes, it does get added to AGI. It is treated as regular income and does not get capital gains treatment. At least he doesn't owe the penalty!

They've spent over a year serving our country, and I'm going to tell them it takes one - two months longer for them to get their refund than everyone else? I'm not doing that!

I think you are right on the 1st one. But for the second, the client can deduct interest up to 2 "homes" per year on Sch A. You don't have to live in the home. It just has to meet the requirements of having a restroom and a place to eat (maybe a couple of other things). For example, you can deduct interest on an RV, but not a tent.

I tell my clients that this is the IRS schedule but that I can't guarantee what their computers will do. I can only vouch for what I do.