rfassett

Not sure where the complete lack of records and a comment that says "she says she earns approximately $22,000" meets "a professional's requirement for due diligence" but if you say so - but not in my office. And it was her idea to suppply the notarized letter, irrelevant as it might be. But my approach to handling this was to allow the girl to save face and move on without the preparer having to say "get lost". It was never my intent that the return be prepared in this manner.

Let it be her choice to go elsewhere, tell her you will prepare the return - but only via paper and mail, that you need to attach the notarized letter, and that you will need to include numerous disclosures about her lack of recordkeeping. Further tell her that you will need the name and EIN of the "employer" so you can include that on the return so the IRS can investigate as to why her boss does not have her on payroll. Keep building this scenario until SHE runs.

They don't take a lot of time if you have all of the info - but we seem to always be chasing information while preparing 1099s. My billables were about the same as yours and should take less than a week to do, but it always drags on into the third week and beyond - in fact, we are still not done.

$10 per Oh, and have I mentioned lately that I hate 1099s. Even at $10 they are not much of a money maker.

It did - thanks!

Might be time for an address change. A tax prep office with a security guard with an AR-15 and surveillance cameras? Really?

If the real question is "would I renew early with ATX given the start of this season" my answer would be a resounding YES. I do not make it a practice of renewing early, but if I did, I would have no issue with it. I have maintained right along that ATX would get this worked out - and judging from the huge reduction of noise on the various list servs, I have to believe that ATX is on their way to doing just that - working it out. Make no mistake, I think there is still a ways to go - but I am here for the ride, such that it is. I was able to prepare eight not-so-simple returns yesterday whereas ten days ago, I would have been happy with half that. Progress is a good thing!

As a voice of reason, I have never known Rich to be wrong!

One for each. I concur.

ATX has stated on the blog and ATX TV that the 4562 will not be available until Friday (for ATX, not the IRS). ATX is releasing program update 12.8 in the morning and that has something to do with the 4562. Then in the afternoon, after we have had time to grab the 12.8 update, they will release a Form 4562 update and after that we will be able to efile 4562's. Corporate efiling, if there are no forbidden forms, is available now, I believe.

Try re-booting the computer - not just the program.

I had that issue earlier in the season and do not remember exactly what I did so it must have been just a re-boot or something simple, I know I did not call technical support because I have not called them this year. Anyway, try that, if you haven't already.

And know who your master is. Just because the IRS says they are going to start accepting them does not mean that ATX is ready to go. I think the 8863 will be OK on the 14th (if that is the stated date) according to what I have read, but the 4562, even though being accepted by the IRS, ATX is not accepting those returns until late Friday (the 15th) - after the 4562 form update which will be after the 12.8 program update (both of which are to occur on Friday).

Rita, no, no, no, no and no. I just installed the update. The second return I printed today (a 1040 with a PA Corp (required for SMLLC returns in PA) and a PA and local return was a bit more termpremental. The print stopped after 31 of 39 pages. I suspect it had something to do with the strange form in a 1040 file but it went through the second time with no problem - and again, just over 2 minutes. By the way, that two minutes includes printing to pdf in the paperless plus and then printing to the printer from there. Stephanie on ATX TV made me almost fall out of my chair Friday. She said after the update the printing speeds would be lightening fast. Today was the first I had the opportunity to print, and relatively speaking she was close to being accurate.

Just printed a 40 page corporate return (federal and two state returns) in just over 2 minutes. I am a happy camper! ATX rocks! OK, maybe that was a bit over the top, but still.....

I have not had this issue with ATX, or any program for that matter for quite some time. It used to have something to do with not allowing the file you were working in to completely close before trying to close the program. If you are not doing so now, try waiting several seconds after closing a return before you close the program.

I try to clean up every return I do. Makes next year's rollover smoother and takes less time to load if I need to re-open it and it takes less digital space.

No. The only time I can remember doing anything close to that was for a client I had for a couple of years (the daughter of a solid client multi-business client). She got married last year and her husband said they would go to whichever preparer did the "better job for them". I talked to the client and told her I do not play that game but if they want me to prepare the return for comparision, it will be prepared as though it was going to be filed and I would expect full payment for my services. She agreed. Came in and paid for the return when it was done and said, "sorry my husband says the other guy did better". I of course reviewed AGAIN what I had done and mine was a solid return. I would never do that for free - I just do not play those games.

Having done my share of sales, I am compassionate toward sales people, as a rule. But for me, the first rule of sales is to know your audience. And you do not call on restaruants during lunch hour and you do not call on an accounting office during tax season. I have NO compassion for the ones that violate that rule.

Just had a call from Thomson Reuter rep stating that they knew I was an ATX user (because I have previously told them) and that they have received a great number of calls from unhappy ATX users. She wanted to know if I was having all the issues they were hearing about and if so, would I be interested in their Ultra Tax product. I said, no I am not having all of the issues that you are hearing about and no I am not interested in Ultra Tax. After hanging up, I wished I would have asked how many of those ATX folks they signed up. I know for a fact there is a huge price difference. I would think that not many ATXers have moved to Ultra Tax.

Last word I heard on 12.7 is that they are hoping to post it Friday.

My sentiments exactly!

Me too. I started preparing corps and partnerships (and all of mine have a 4562) a week ago but peeled off them when I realized just how far MY state was in getting their act together on business returns. I listen to a lot of the comments about the software costing us money (or at least - deferred revenue). Had the 4562 and state been "on time" I would have had over 50 corporate returns done by now. The good news as I said, is it is not lost revenue, just deferred. A lot of my 1040's have 4562's also but that is not holding me off from preparing them.

Auto save does not not prevent manual save. If I sense I have done a lot of work in 5 minutes that I do not want to do again, or after every significant import, I just click save and move on.

I have my preferences set to auto save the return every ten minutes. I can get a lot of work done in 10 minutes. Not saving for longer than that would create a real mess. I have 32 in house to do, 37 completed, with an average of 14 per day to arrive between now and March 22. Anything arriving after March 22 is automatically extended. And all of my returns are pre-scheduled in December that is how I know I will have 14 arriving per day. Not one of those are prepared in front of the client. None the less, I can not afford to give away more than 10 minutes of work, that is why I auto-save. I was just in a rather large return, was working with the fixed assets (an automobile allocation to be exact) when the software shut down. I opened it back up back track to the last auto-save, and within five minutes I was back live. Over the years, auto-save has saved me a lot of time. Yes, it bogs down the return for a few seconds while it is saving, but I never have to re-build a whole return.