Randall

Erlanger is in No. Ky. A suburb of Cincinnati.

I have a full time Kentucky resident filing a nonresident Indiana return. He owes a small amount of IN tax. I have the IN efile info in the return, but it apparently is not linking or something. On the payment and refund tab, no amount is shown due. When I try to create the efile, only the Fed and Ky options are listed. I did this last year and was able to efile all three. Anyone know of something going on with the IN efile system?

The only thing I've had not roll over is the client letter. It rolled over earlier in the season, but a few weeks ago, stopped rolling over. It wasn't that much to just add it and then combine the Fed and state so I didn't persue it.

When first installing, I only checked two states. When I have a return that may have had another state from the prior year, the program will prompt me to insert the CD. This is the only time this happens for me that I can think of.

I roll them over and send in extensions unless I know for sure they're not coming in. For those who don't return, there's a year delay in my program of getting dropped off.

I was wondering how the efiling of 1065 and 1120S returns was working. Especially thru ATX. I got set up to do them last year but haven't done any yet. I've only done 1040s and I still have quite a few paper 1040s. I'm doing more and more efiled 1040s each year though.

I've noticed on my last several returns, the client letter is not included after rolling over from the prior year. Not a big deal, just added it, but I was curious. Anyone else seeing this?

I don't mind the two step error checking. It seems that the efile check process is specific to efiling and wouldn't affect a paper return anyway. Maybe I'm missing something.

I inputted the amount shown on 1065 K-1 Box 20 Code V in the input worksheet. A check warning showed up telling me the amount was not linked. I understood this amount to be for information purposes and not a separately stated income item. I thought the income was inclusive in the income reported in Box 1. Anyone familiar with this item and how ATX handles it?

I don't take these clients. Send them to the IRS. They may do them free. Hey Rev, render unto Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's.

I agree. He needs insurance. You never know what may happen and even doing everything according to Hoyle, you're still vulnerable. A news story around here a few years ago (nothing to do with business or entity choice) was a child drowned in a neighborhood water drain opening during a storm. The opening had a grate over it, but it apparently was not enough. The lawsuit was against the builders, etc. But the kicker was that all homeowners within a certain radius of the location were also included in the lawsuit and the judge allowed them to be included.

All the frivolity aside, this illustrates a point I've wondered about. How does anyone really separate themselves and personal assets from their business LLC and the business assets. It has always seemed to me that if someone were sued, they would sue both the LLC and the individual and how could one defend themselves from this even if they had dotted all the i-s and crossed all the t-s.

I agree. I think in general, businesses are going to cut cost and try to be lean and mean (no pun intended). And the easiest way to cut cost is to cut people and take shortcuts on training people. I expect things to be better next year though. With a whole year, a lot of the Georgia people should be able to come up to par on ATX. I don't have plans to change as of now. With the price of of the higher end programs, I think I'm getting a pretty good deal. If newcomers bring low end programs out, I may try one and see how they progress with their improvements. But they'll have to start out pretty basic just like ATX, then add improvements over the years. Then of course, they'll want to sell and make a killing too.

Overkill.

It usually takes a year or two for the software applications to catch up with the new operating system. I try to time a new computer purchase after SP1 and preferably SP2 comes out. Vista SP1 is due out soon. I expect most of the problems to be ironed out before next tax season. My current computer is about 2 and a half years old with XP SP2. I'm hoping Vista SP2 will be out before I buy my next computer. If I had money and time to spend, I'd get a Linux machine and play around with the software applications available.

What's the ATX A.M.? And how do I access it? I couldn't find anything on the ATX website.

I think the program comes with tutorials.

There's a message on ATX MyAccess. It says some are getting thru and some are not. To keep trying off and on. They are working on it.

Not sure about the 1120, but doesn't IRS say you can have IRS calculate the penalty on 1040 for you. In other words, is it mandatory to calculate the 1040 penalty? I'm not sure what I did wrong last year, but I had the 1040 penalty calculated and several clients got back that money. IRS didn't calculate the penalty. I've stopped calculating the penalty this year.

Client's spouse is usuing a hyphenated last name. When I create the efile, the error message says the name is too long and I must truncate it. The message gave me the priority steps to truncate, first using only initial for first name. I did so and it allows me to create the efile. I haven't transmitted the return yet. Any one have this before? Any problems with the SSN/Name matchup?

I've not had any problems with Norton. I just upgraded from Norton Security to Norton 360. Been using Norton for years. So far so good.

Ordinary or rental income?

Scratch that. Not real prop of course.

You can also elect SL depreciation to lower the depreciation expense up front.

It went thru. Received the IRS acceptance notice.