Medlin Software, Dennis

Thank you. The results, as to what yo do for payroll purposes, are easy, once the employer decides what they want to do. I very carefully stay out of the decision... The trouble (for me) is when my customer has been told something by someone, and that someone really has no idea what they are saying, or will not back up their opinion. The most common is "I was told" to add the health insurance to Box 1, 3, and 5. I reply with how/why/for what purpose, without actually collecting the required withholding for the taxable amount increase, reporting it on 941, etc. The customer eventually get to the realization they should have added the amount to paychecks, and they turn the mess to their tax person to clean up. I cannot recall any inquires from a single person setup, where the healthcare amount may possibly be excluded from income.

Jack, This is just for conversation and my education, and is based on what my customers ask, and tell me they are being told to do. My perspective is from payroll processing and reporting, not tax prep. If I am following correctly, it is not just a matter of altering a W2, the amount needs to be added as taxable wages on the paycheck(s), likely as paid (not at EOY) and both the EE and ER must pay all the appropriate taxes on the "extra wages". This would create a proper W2, 940, 941, state reports, UI reports, worker's comp reports, and so on - showing the amount as taxable wages. It appears to be a Catch-22 as far as the tax preparer "end" and the payroll "end" - to get the employer to do what they are supposed to have been doing. The tax preparer (rightly so) cares only about a proper W2, and tells the employee (or in some cases, their client is an employer) to create/get a correct W2. The employer then asks me how to edit a W2. So, selfishly, I am trying to come up with a non-official recommendation for the payroll end. In the example in this thread (pls correct me if I am wrong): In this case, money given for medical is now wages, and should be added to the paychecks when given. This allows proper taxation (increase subject wages). This will properly include the amount on all payroll reports. Employees handle any deductability through their personal tax return.

Opinions? Any ACA changes are not part of this particular issue, the person asking says they are a CPA and the plan in question meets ACA. Person wants the company paid amount to also show as taxable on CA DE9 (state quarterly wage report, not just W2 and W3. (In this case, 941 is not being asked, although I have yet to find any IRS direction to add it to a 941, we allow it if the customer chooses.) For the CA DE9: do you show the amount as taxable wages? if so, as paid? Just Q4? Something else? Also, since it is clear CA wants this as taxable, at least on W2, should the company be withholding tax on the company paid amount, and if so, when? Thank you...

For me, paper. 1. The requirements put on me by the various tax agencies are unacceptable, should I choose only electronic records. 2. I only keep what I am required to, for no more than the required time. What you are not required to keep (voice ot Jack Webb here) can and will be used against you...

Always timely advice. Having watched others go through this, as well as family, our kids have told us to get our stuff together. We worked through a sucession plan for work as well - as our customers deserve it. This is something many small operations forget to plan for. Plan to be replaced!

Computer hardware is likely to fail shortly after new, or several years down the road... not much in the way of failures in between. The last time I looked, hard drives (for example) had a MTBF of about 3 years. IIRC, this figure has been stable for many years. The reason it is so low is because of the incidence of failure when new. If you were to exclude failures when new, it is probably 5 or more years to average failure. For backups, I have one local (never reuse media, use good CD's). A local USB drive (one). A set I take to another location. A set on a server I control in a different geographic location. A set on a public cloud backup system. All are double encrypted by me before saving. The real key though is routinely testing said backups (at least twice a year). Backing up without testing is only slightly better than no backups. My other "backup" is having a nearly instant way to reroute incoming phone calls, a second and third way to access internet, and alternate computers almost ready to go. All of these which I can access from more than one location. In my case, we do have natural disasters (earthquake and flood) in my community, which have both caused me to use part of my backup sustems in the last few years. The worst was many years ago when we were without public utilitues for several days, and could not get across town due to all river crossings being unavailable. That experience makes it easy for me to plan for failure, and not blink at time spent doing so, as failure does happen. Fou our recent quake, the only unexpected item was the "luxury" of having a battery powered vaccum to clean up glass. I now consider the battery vaccum a necessity... and have obtained several extra batteries as recharging from the cars took longer than I would have preferred. Those car batteries and assuming some sort of generator or working vehicle, are our power lifeline. Lived off them for 3 days during the '86 flood.

I neglected one other old time advice - don't be the person who thinks a new computer, USB stick, portable drive, etc., means no issues. That new item was not always in your control, and may have an issue. This is less frequent these days, but can still happen. Like others have said for other topics, trust, but VERIFY.

Safe Hex is still the best prevention. Know what you download and from where. Know what sites you are opening. Disable Javascript except for trusted sites. TUrn off the preloading of web pages. Don't open attachments you did not ask for - read questionable email in text format only. Etc. Personally, I will never pay for a protection program. Those who depend on my payment have a much higher incidence of "false positives". The idea being to get my payment, I have to see they are "doing" something. There are plenty of free protection programs available which are very good. What good is it to have a protection program when you have to turn it off to install and used trusted software? Only use one at a time, but have another for cross checking. Use virustotal to cross check against more than 50 protection programs "if" you get a hit in your two installed programs. The piece which is usually not mentioned is a protection program can only accurately protect you from known threats. They "guess" as to what might come down the pike, but often guess wrong. Those wrong guesses cause people to tire of the incorrect warnings, and turn off the protection. Nefarious folks (the experts, not the "script kiddies") know how to fool the guessing, it can be as easy as changing one letter in their code from upper to lower case, or vice versa... If you ponder this a bit, we have had protection programs for many years, yet there are still new (really new, not just a rehash of some old scam) which hurt, since the protection programs can only guess at new things. If a protection program really could protect you, there would be no more new scams... since they would never get past a "protection" program. If you practice good safe hex, you do not need a protection program, and you will not get "hit". On the other hand, we are all human, and a little protection can save us from a wanton keypress or click..

I miss DOS on occasion. Looking for the "any" key. Explaining the CD carrier was not a cup holder. The main key was the Return key instead of Tab. Just yesterday, heard from someone who was still using one of our DOS programs.

Sat... use it for TV. Would not like to use it for internet - too much latency. Tried it once, worse (to me) than using my phone as a hotspot.

Hardware: I never keep current. I like yo use several year old hardware. If I use current, my comptuer would be faster than my customers, which can cause issues. Hardware is so far ahead of what we can physically type and what the common graphics systems can display, there is little need to keep up. Sure, if you are doing something special, you can buy special gear (think flight sim with a huge frame rate), but for general usage, anything within the last 5 years is fine. I happen to be using a sub 200 laptop at present, hooked to a large monitor and USB keybard and mouse. Plenty fast enough. Not an ATX user, but I have one comment on network issues. WIndows has settings which control how "network" connctions are refreshed. We use a small network to pass backup files (instead of sneaker net). At random times, one computer will not be seen by another. Yes, ours will sleep/hibernate. One gets turned on and off during the day. Does not happen often enough for us to look into it, but it concievably be a clue as to the ATX issue. Remember, "server" and 'network" absolutely may be something on the very same computer - it does not have to be on a different computer.

With my developer hat on: Cloud removes some very nasty headaches. No support for installation, maintenance, updates, backing up data, etc. Factoring in support for just these issues is a HUGE part of software cost. Like it or not, modern computer users are insulated from having to know how computers function, and expect software vendors to train them if needed. This is not a bad thing, as it means more can use the wonderful tool, it is just different. (Imagine if GM had to teach me how to drive, give directions, make repairs, fill the gas tank, etc., all for free, because I bought a GM vehicle.) Much more easily to handle proper licensing as one can monitor exact access and cut it off as needed. Costs go up as one has to charge enough to cover customers being online 24/7 and moving large amounts of data. But, those costs get passed on, and if the customer is not all that active, I might make more money. (I would not want to have to run a meter and bill for access.) Unless I am sloppy and do something incorrectly, I have zero liability for lost data, so no new risk there. The bad is all on the customer. Outages. Intuit has suffered them, as has Amazon. If these two, expecially Amazon, cannot keep up 100% of the time, then how can anyone else? Intuit's online payroll was unavailable for more than 24 HOURS not too long ago... Amazon is the back end for MANY cloud services, so it is safe to say they are the best, and yet they cannot be perfect. If data is lost, the customer has likely trusted they did not need an online backup and are in bad shape. Slower data entry is almost a given, and a bad thing for even a lousy keyboarder. For safe data, each entry must be stored and added, slowing down entry. Well, unless you live in a Google fiber area and your cloud service is in the same loop... (For example, I am writing this using a remote connection to my main computer, and even at slow typing, I have to "wait" a few ms for the remote software to send the keystrokes to the main computer, update the display, and send the restults back to me and update my display. This is a very fair comparison to cloud or even network based software speed.) So for now, we remain softare installed on the customer's computer and do not require internet access at all. We continue to consider a cloud offering, but nothing on the horizon.

From a programmer's point of view, a Catch-22. Asked often. Allow me to edit anything, but do not make me responsible for bad edits... or do not allow me to edit anything, and figure out what I really meant to do/keep. Over 30 years, I have learned the user will defeat (on purpose or accidentally) any code to warn or attempt to prevent making a bad decision. (Proves I am human and can be out smarted.) Thus, the only practcal method is to clearly make the user responsible for what happens or does not happen at their keyboard, with the reverse of allowing to fix whatever happened with correct keyboarding. Had this issue a few moments ago. Someone said we printed an incorrect DE9, as the ETT pct was 0. Printed again later with a correct ETT. Person wanted us to pay the penalty amount. The issue was user based. We do not and cannot set ETT as not all employers have to pay ETT. The user did not have ETT setup at all. On the first report, they would have had to confirm they were not subject to ETT via a Y/N message. (We do ask if we di not find ETT setup properly.) On the second, the person probably answered no, they were not exempt, so despite not setting up ETT, we insert the proper limit and rate for the user. Probably lost a customer over this as there was no way the person was willing to accept that they messed up, despite seeing the results right in front of them, including exactly how it happens. So the message is if not paper, then create PDF's, multiple sets, and keep them safely in your control in at least two separate locations. Backup, backup, backup. And after that, test the backups on a clean machine from a completely separate location. Can you reinstall your applications? Can you restore or access your data? How long does it take?

Thankfully, we do not send software until paid. We tried invoices many years ago, and it was more headache than it was worth. If someone really does not have a charge card, they can obtain a prepaid card at any decent store. Those that prefer checks, mail them (although some actually try faxing them). If someone cannot bother with paying in advance, they are probably going to cause me other grief in the near future anyway. I am a big proponent of life is too short to deal with things which bother me. Considering the social aspect, I would "say" not worry about it other than not letting them get behind again. Maybe refer them to someone else, assuming you know someone else local who you would not be embarrassed to recommend. On the other hand, I don't like being taken advantage of, and would actually insist on proper payment, and if kept for the future, be paid retainer style in advance. If someone gets mad at me because of not wanting to pay what I charge, that is their issue, not mine, and I would hold me head up high. This is something I learned because of my umpiring avocation (and happily, my sons did as well). You do your best at any one moment, usng all available information, accept you may not be perfect, and move on Those that get upset are not worth the hassle of trying to please them. Have I lost friends? NO! If they were truly friends, they would not have ended the relationship over something so small as a ballgame.

The IRS has published the 2015 calculations. Search for Notice 1036.

What do I say/do? First off, if a call, I let the person know there item is not something I can comment (note I do not say answer) without more thought. I ask they send the question by email, and I will answer by email so I can write out my thoughts. A certain number never write. Those that do, I can respond with links and a short comment. Those that continue to go what I consider too far, I tell then their question is beyond the type of help we offer with our software license. Those that persist, I offer a refund. A refund usually is refused, they understand, and want to continue using the software. Have one or two customers who are customers only because they agreed to not ask any questions (reinstated after a refund, I keep good notes.)

Interesting topic. It is a tough line to walk. For me, it is when someone figures since I answer the phone, they can use me for all sorts of computer issues, not just help using our software. When something not involving our software, if they are not a customer, I decline. If they are a customer, I direct them to email me. I restrict the reply to generic links as much as possible. <rant> Today, there was a customer yelling at me (ALL CAPS) through email that our software was causing a problem with their printer. This, despite the fact that the same person was able to print just fine with their second printer, the only problem was the new printer. The issue was the printer's software was set to print four pages per sheet. They thought it was me causing their print to be compressed on just this one printer. They got no help from the printer manufacturer, as the manufacturer blamed our software. The last message was me showing, through marked up images from the manufacturer's web site, that the printer offered the four per sheet option, and where exactly it was. So, to try to keep a customer, I had to provide support for a large worldwide company (again), since said company proved (again) their priority is to get callers off the phone, and blamed someone else (again) instead of showing their customer how to use their own printer software. </rant>

ILLMAS: It was a male.

What got me was the ex customer was offended when I asked why employ those you clearly do not trust - since it was not a remove the temptation type of inquiry, but how to keep out those he already knew were not trustworthy. Had to be one of those "setup someone else to blame" situations. I have no history of needing to work with untrustworthy employees to relate to, as the couple I had who were untrustworthy, were made ex employees at the moment trust was gone. 'Tis the life of providing support. One time, you are too "dry" for only answering exactly what is asked, in as short and direct manner as possible. The next, you are butting in when you read between the lines, and talk to the person as if they were standing next to you. Sucesfully reading/guessing/lucking into the intent of the other party is the money zone... For Sailor. References are fairly worthless these days, as the former employer wants to cover themselves. Background checks are not fool proof, not even if just looking for the big issues. (Have experience with checking volunteers for a national org, and all they really do is allow the org to say they tried to find issues.) To me, the best is to start with a safe position and get to know the person before adding more responsibility. Yes, you do what you can to check, but you cannot reply on those checks, or always eliminate people because of one item in their past. In other words a reference background check is no better than buying a used car based solely on carfax, since both rely on the reporter to actually report, and when they do, to report correctly. You still have to test drive the car, and the employee.

For those with employees, do you trust them? I am asking because you are likely in the tax prep business, and have to have the trust of your clients. With that said, you are likely to need to also trust your employees as they represent you. Just lost a customer because I could not promise them our password protection would keep out their untrustworthy employees (I am not foolish enough to make such a guarantee...). The person was offended when I inquired how they could have employees they do not trust, yet have those same emplyees handle client information. I can see setting up surveillance as a prevention tool (I have them around my home for just such a purpose, good fences and good cameras make good neighbors out of bad ones), but I cannot see how having employees you know you do not trust is beneficial.

"She did purchase all of the chairs, sinks, dryers, tables, furniture and fixtures as well as the name and the clientele." "The previous owner walked away with the money and will proceed to render services out of her home." Not that the buyer asked your advice, and it is likely too late to intervene: What did they buy as "clientele"? As a former renter, the new owner should not have to pay for her own list of clients. The other renters are not likely sharing their list of clients. The former owner? The former owner may have "sold" their list, but the value is little since many/most will follow the old owner. (Having a daughter with "complicated" hair, we follow the stylist no matter where she goes.) Even the shop name is of little value since the former owner is simply moving to another location (home). True story. My daughter's stylist worked for a chain in a mall. When she moved from the chain to renting a booth elsewhere, we did not hear about it right away. When we called the chain for an appt, the receptionist was not shy about telling us where our person moved to and giving us her cell number. It is such a personal business, this is what may happen to your client as well, as your client may even be the one letting the customer know where the former owner is - if she does not, the customer will eventually find out and become a former customer anyway. added: If there was some sort of master list under the former owner's control (the only way I would see the list as having a value), the former owner was more than likely an employer since they controlled the clients and thus, scheduling.

Make sure you like the keyboard and the display, the two things you have to "live" with. Secondary is whether or not I can get a higher capacity battery, and how much. All new machines have enough hardware (or can be upgraded) to run most applications - unless you are trying for something special, like the fastest FPM for a game...

I understand, but the flaw is payroll is not all that static, with form and calculation changes... While we do not suggest updating every payroll run (as others do/require), I cannot think of a month where I have not changed something. A CD is outdated as soon as burnt.

We can always tell when media is going to change. Matches the time when we purchase a fair sized lot of current media. Finally got rid or our last box of 5.25 and last box of 3.5 floppies. For our current version cycle, we are at 6% receiving a CD. Of those, it is safe to say a large chunk download and never use the CD. Old habits, such as having a hard copy on hand in case the entire internet fails are hard to break. MCB, your first order was in Nov of 2002... Our longest continious customer goes back to May 1986.

I am fond of following the regs and printing forms to keep for compliance. Dropping another copy in the mail is easy too.