BTS

Today may be worse !!!! But hey.... its the last day !! You can take a few weeks off then hit the extensions !!!! Get the booze ready for the after season party !!!!

I find the more people make the more they spend. But we do have a few that are very frugal with their money.

Being in Ohio also, another issue we constantly have is clients living in a RITA municipal. They never seem to know if they paid estimated to them or not. If they did they never keep receipts. So we always have to call RITA and see if they did. I hate RITA !!! And the sad thing is, more towns are going to them. Would also love to have just 50 well paying clients. But unfortunately thats what we do in a few days.

Oh we have a few of them !!!

We would be $165 and that includes city tax. We have a few elderly clients we pick up and deliver. Been with us forever. 90% of our clients have been with us for over 25 to 30 years. Of course a handful pass and we pick up a handful every year. We do have some that leave one year to try someone else, but they get sticker shock and come back. I can agree to an extent. My father started our business back in the late 60's. Small town and everyone knows each other. Always there for clients and never charged for phone calls or when people dropped in with questions. Fast forward He dies at age 86 and did taxes till he was 84. Over 60 years in our small town. At his funeral there were clients who came, but not many. But we have an extended family so there was a ton there. My point is, your clients, no matter how good you are to them do not care about you in the long run. Your just the tax guy Our easy partnerships start at $385 (two partners with two rentals). We need to raise our rates !!! But like I mentioned in the original post, we are doing away with 1065's and 1041's. Let them get sticker shock elsewhere

Well, we quit taking checks after covid. Had a crap load of bounced checks during covid. And tracking people down was a nightmare. Best decision we made.

We have rental worksheets clients fill out for us, so we do not have to wade through receipts and documents. Same with business and farms. But based on the replies, we are currently about $265 for my scenario client. If they filed separate it would jump up to around $340. Hence my original post we could realistically raise our fees 30% and still be below the average. We have client files from 20 years ago and its crazy how a client we charge $165 for now was only $35 to $40 !!

For survey reasons, what would you charge for this ? Married couple with a 1040, one schedule e residential rental property, a schedule d with 10 stock sales with no basis reported to irs (each stock sales listed individually), a 1099sa and 8889 of course, 2 w2's (one for each spouse) and 2 children (no eic). And do you charge one fee no matter if the file mfj or mfs ? Or one fee for MFJ and one for MFS ?

I do not remember such a rough season as this year. Well maybe the stimulus seasons. But so many people this year forgetting documents !! Interest statements, investment statements, social security statements. And you call and no one ever answers the phone. You leave a message and they call back and ask what you wanted. Did you check your voice mail ??? No, they reply. So frustrating. Then they forget you need stuff and call and ask why its taking so long to prepare their taxes !!! Idiot... your suppose to get me documents !! I dont call then Idiots, but I sure a heck want to. So many other frustrating situations. Too many to list !! But something has to change. We need to cut way back and weed out problem clients. Been saying this for many years, but it has to happen. Time to change our pricing and business model. I think its time to loose all non 1040 clients and a few schedule C clients. And pain in the arse 1040 ones. We could raise our prices 30% and lose 30% in the process and make life so much easier. And at a 30% price hike, we would still be under the national tax prep average. We charge some clients the same we did 10 years ago !! Some even beyond 10 years !! But it has to change. Getting old and just honestly do not need the aggravation. Anyone else, have a crazy year ???

I actually sold an old Compaq portable pc to a museum in California about 10 years ago. Was the size of a small suit case and weighed about 30lbs !! Sold it and some old Voodoo Video Cards to them. You know your old when your crap you bought new belongs in a museum !!

Dos !!! I remember when Dosshell came out (before Windows). Was so cool. Instead of typing in the command line to do things, you could create menus to do them. I think I still have all those MS Dos discs. Im a pack rat with computers. Still have old 286 systems with floppy drives. And a couple Ditto Tape Backup units. Feel sorry for my kids having to get rid of all my crap !!!

Remember when HP LaserJet III was the best printer in the 90's ? Plus you had to buy a Tax Font Cartridge. Crazy expensive back then too. About 3k for the printer and fonts. Still have two of them. Collecting dust in the basement !!!

We have two 6200dw's and both are over 100,000 on page counts. Our original 1800dw (very old model) has over 300,000 pages on it. Still works great !! But LD Products is a great place to buy toner and drums. So much cheaper than OEM stuff. We used Ricoh units before Brother and toner was not cheap for those. And aftermarket toner was hard to find.

Second on Brother printers. Cheap and you can buy non Brother toner cartridge's and drums on the cheap. We use LD Products for replacement toner and drums.

Actually have Dean, Tony Bennett and others on rotation. I listen to everything, well.. except rap and new country. Has to be old country. Chet Adkins, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride. And then Judas Priest kicks in !!!!