joelgilb

Good Luck Julie And that Ouija board is great. Asked it if you would succeed and it said Yes Asked if you would improve your income and it said Yes Asked it if my wife would allow me to have a Concubine and it said Yes!!! Yahooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now to find the right women for my concubine.....

Jainen is correct that State Law defines how title in property is held. Further IRS generally has no legal authority to define law, unless Congress specifically gives them that right to expand the Code in the Regs. That has clearly not happened here.

You can choose to take the insurance soley on schedule A instead. But I agree with mchampine, I find it hard to believe it is a better result on schedule A. Also, note that many States, such as IL, would then not get the benefit of reducing the State Income.

Maybe your client base is different and if so that's great. Wish I had the same base of clients. My clients tend to need hand holding and when they call they want to talk and if I cut them off they tend to get upset with me. Or maybe its just that I have diarrhea of the mouth (its an attorney thing, we get paid by the word I think). I even tend to spend 15 minutes plus with the people that call with questions that aren't clients looking for the free advice. And I do so because you never know when one will turn into a good client. In fact, I just received a call while writing this from someone looking for free advice and spoke with him for 25 minutes (which is why I remembered to add this comment). This one I believe has turned into a paying client and in the end decided he needed more of my time and made an appointment. Wondering if Jack's has a similar base or is also a talker like me (no offense Jack, if you're not).

Jack: You are right on the money with these comments! Seeing the same thing myself and the clients argue with me like I prepared a special return for them to get their stimulus payment! Have a real good friend that has his own practice as well. Last week he was on vacation in Mexico, when he came back he had 48 messages on his voice mail. 46 were with questions about the stimulus payment and he agrees that minimum phone call is 15 minutes! Let's see 46 * 15 = 690 minutes / 60 is 11.5 hours. And that's not near the calls he has taken already, before he left for vacation.

JohnH another member posted the following link to refer our clients to and even suggested that it doesn't take much time to go there and do it for them. "A suggestion about the economic stimulus calls. I've had a few, and as I said before I always offer to email them the link to the "Where's My Stimulus Payment" page so they can do their own follow-up. https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/irfof/IRServlet?app=IRACTC " Although I am getting tired of answering this question for FREE! This does help.

Ok I finally bit the bullet and decided to renew for next year. Did drop my package from Total Tax Office to Max though and considering if I should renew the total tax office later this year. So Why did I do this. Did I get my GUARANTEE! (the Justin Wilson guarantee)? No, afraid not. Spoke with one of the few that took the transfer from Caribou Maine to Georgia, who suggested that though it was a bad decision, there were offers for others to transfer to GA to consolidate the call center. He assured me (not sure why I finally believed) that not only will the ATX software exist, it had 3 times the user base of Taxwise and they have and have planned substantial upgrades to the product. Including one I have looked for, the ability to automatically have K-1 information transfer to the individual returns. So, I stopped holding out and made the decision to renew. Besides, I find that I really don't need technical support that often.

There is the ability to run Windows under the MAC OS using "CrossoverMac" from Codeweavers or "Wine". According to their site: "In a nutshell, you have three main choices: * Dual-booting: running two separate operating systems on one PC, and switching between them as needed by rebooting. Applications such as Apple's Bootcamp allow this to occur on a Mac OS X machine, for example. * Running a virtual machine: Emulation products such as VMware and Parallels allow you to run a full version of the Windows OS inside a program running on your native operating system. The Windows applications essentially run in a separate "box within a box." * Running Wine or CrossOver: Unlike emulation, Wine is a re-implementation of the Win32 API, allowing applications to run as if natively on the target OS. CrossOver is a commercialized version of Wine." I have never used any of the choices, nor have I ever run a Mac. This does provide another option though and one that run inside the Mac O/S without rebooting or using quirky emulators. My guess would be that this option is full of its own set of problems. This link from Codeweavers, gives you their take on the pluses and minuses of each option. http://www.codeweavers.com/products/differences/

Every year you should increase your billing on returns at least 5%, whether you need it or not. Never had a client complain about that small of an increase. Then the increase for the software is payed by the first few returns you prepare

If you here anything about the MAC OS running all the Windows software, and being sold as a stand alone operating system POST IT! WINDOWS SUCKS!

If you are asking about downloading the data from your old machine, you can transfer the files a number of ways. Back them up or copy them to CD and then copy them onto the new machine. Transfer them via a network. Use one of the programs out there like laplink and link the machines together. If you are asking about the software. I am not sure if you can download the files from Intuit or not. But you can not copy them from your old machine to the new machine, you must install the software from the original CD provided by Intuit, which I presume you have. This is primarily due a the structure of Windows. Note that when installing (most but not all) software to Windows 95, 98, XP or Vista, the installation software creates numerous entries into the Windows Registry. Copy the software folder from your old machine will not create any of these entries and thus your software will not run. There are a few programs out there there that do not install anything into the registry, but they are few and far between. These programs are more portable, like the old DOS software. One other option is to purchase a migration software. I already mentioned laplink whiich makes PCMover above, but there are a couple of others out there as well, such as Acronis Migrate Easy, Norton Ghost, and a few others I can't remember the name of. Note that each has different features and you need to be careful using these as they could also transfer settings from the old machine and make the new one slow, unstable or possibly unusable. Lastly, I agree with Jack. Stay away from Vista if at all possible. Old software will not run or not run properly. And Vista has had so many problems since its release. It is todays Windows ME, a previous operating system fiasco.

and how do you get this distinctive honor?

Just had a very interesting conversation with TRX. I had downloaded the TRX software to take demo and evaluate it and they were calling me back to see if I wanted to join and get the TRX software for $299.00. Decided that it was not enough for what I do and was going to renew with ATX. Then TRX suggested I look at their other software which is $699.00 and much more powerful. Was told the other software "TRX1040" is the full version of...... Wait for it...... Its Coming ....... And it is !!!! TAXWISE! A free download is available to demo at www.trx1040.com You will need to provide contact information and then will be directed to the download url.

The general consensus has been that we will be staying on this board.

Think I have early stages of OLDTIMERS Disease here! (pun intended - isn't it terrible when you have to explain you intended a pun so you don't look totally stupid?) Anyway with all the mergers, purchases, etc., the names of the software are beginning to confuse me. Taxwise -CCH - Universal Tax Systems (not UltraTax like I was thinking due to the mind fart I had) CS UltraTax - Thomson Tax & Accounting - Creative Solutions... Is there more? Drake Tax Software - Drake - Drake TurboTax / Proseries - Intuit - Chipsoft

Good catch Mike, sorry I missed that one. And if you have no objection, I am going to plagiarize that point and add it to the letter I tend to send my clients.

This is very true. The lack of case law does mean that there is risk when using LLC for liability protection. Although, the LLC is supposed to be designed to provide limited liability similar to corporations, we are not certain how courts will deal with this issue in every case. Even though we can argue that corporate case law should apply on this issue, the Courts, Judges and Jurys may treat the liability issues differently for this entity. And although, I and a growing bank of attorneys believe that the liability issue will be treated the same, there is no-where near the depth of case law on the LLC entity. It is one of the things I routinely warn clients about when they request the LLC entity. Totally agree that the determination of the entity for the business operations should be considered separately and that a corporate entity may make the most sense here. Even before the LLC existed, choice of entity has been a planning issue for both CPA's and Attorney's. Do we separate the business from the real estate? Do we use one entity for one and a different one for the other? And do any of the traditional choice of entities still make sense in a particular situation (ie: Limited Partnerships, General Partnerships, S-corps, C-Corps, Trusts, etc.)? There is no one perfect boiler plate answer to these questions, and every choice does have its own trade offs. Geesh, I feel like I am spouting off boiler plate answers too.

No need, that gives me enough of a general idea of the costs.

Jack you are so right. But it is sad that they can't see the light, isn't it? (rhetorical question here).

Working now, thx I will check it out.

I think all I did was provide information for MJG to make her own decision based on her clients needs. And rather than get antagonistic, I asked you a serious question. What entity do you think works here and why? I am open to listen to your ideas and was seriously soliciting one. I think you don't like my gray hair...

I think you are correct as to the $100.00, but they sent me a few of the old programs for $20.00 each as well. I believe I purchased 4 back years from them, so I wouldn't have to use my old software and could roll returns forward. And these were years I had never purchased from ATX at all. Besides, these are old packages that have very little salability after the season is done. They would get a lot more customer value and Goodwill by sending a replacement disk free, than the few dollars they are making by charging $100.00. Isn't customer service the name of the game?

Replying to my own post here to correct something I wrote. When I said I tried Ultratax, I was mistaken it was Creative Solutions product I was referring to.

I believe that CA has recently started accepting Tiered LLCs and besides, the original poster is from Illinois and Illinois allows Tiered LLCs. Jainen, it appears you are against the LLC. What entity would you suggest and why, to satisfy the issues and concerns that MJG's client has?

I have not demo'ed or reveiwed this software yet, but had bookmarked the link this tax season. Just tried to get there using your link, my link and a Google search and get "Server not found". So either they are out of business or their site is down. I'll try again later and let everyone know what I find.