BulldogTom

Agree with Mr. Pencil. The client should know that there is no Capital Gains tax in CA. It is all ordinary income. That can be a shock to the uniformed. Tom Hollister, CA

I am really liking the print features in ATX this year. We saw some of it last year (when the program was actually working) with the watermarks and different setups for Client and Filing and Preparer copies. I think this will go down as a major improvement over the 2011 software when it is all said and done. Diggin' the watermarks on the client copy. They can't file it. Tom Hollister, CA

I have been backing up returns to a flash drive for several years. Keep them offsite in case the worse happens. I use 8 gig flash drives for this purpose. I usually never use more than 1 gig of space on them. Went to backup the 5 returns I have rolled over an worked on in ATX this year and I get a message that there is not enough room on the device and the backup needs 7.6 gigs of space. That is a lot bigger than the other years. Is there a way to compress the database or some way to select the backup that I am not seeing? Thanks Tom Hollister, CA

ATX 2013 does support two sided printing (I did it by accident, so I know it happens). I don't do that for tax returns normally. Tom Hollister, CA

I Just did my first Fee Collect tax return. I noticed that when I added the fee collect application to the return, the invoice amount did not go up by $15. I checked my billing rates, and the fee collect form is set for $15. I went back to the invoice and looked under "excluded forms" and fee collect was there. When I checked the box, the invoice went up by $15. Anyone else having this issue? I have used fee collect for a number of years, and it has always just populated the invoice when the form is added to the return. Is there something new out there that is making it act this way this year? Something I may have forgotten from last year that I am doing wrong this year? TIA Tom Hollister, CA

This is a pain in the @$$. But you can turn it off by modifying the master form. I just did it and it was not that painful. Tom Hollister, CA

I do most of my returns face to face. I go over every line item in the return with the client and explain what the number relates to. Most errors are caught right there. It is the returns that someone sends in and I don't get to go over that cause me trouble. I try to have the wife look them over for me and vice versa for her returns that are not in person. Things still slip through. It happens, you deal with it honestly, and the client makes up their mind if they are satisfied with your service or not. Usually they stay. Tom Hollister, CA

Mike, I am in the South Bay Area, about 3 hours from Sacramento, but if you don't get anyone up there (Like Joanmcq), I would be happy to assist. I have a seasonal office in Lodi still, which is only an hour away from him, but I am normally only there on Saturdays and my wife is in there Tues and Wed. Let me know if I can be of assistance. [email protected] Tom Hollister, CA

<<its hard to get the pizza shop or locksmith etc to set up proceedures to get W-9 info on everyone they pay. >> However, that is the requirement by the government. We require all vendors to submit a W9 before they can get paid. We just don't cut the check without a W9 on file. If they want to sue us for non-payment, then they can go into a courtroom and explain to a judge that they don't want to get a 1099 at the end of the year. Tom Hollister, CA

I think I know what you thought you said. Tom Hollister, CA

Taxpayer has a rental house (never personal use, always a rental for entire time he owned the home, over 10 years) that he wants to exchange out of. He owns a piece of vacant land that he would like to put a duplex on to rent. Can he exchange the rental home for the duplex to be built on the land he owns? If the answer to above is yes, does construction in progress extend the time for the exchange to be completed (the 180 day requirement that the replacement property be purchased)? Can the taxpayer, while waiting for the rental unit to sell, use his own money to start the contractor building the duplex? Like a parker transaction? He has the resources to build the duplex, but he wants to get the exchange treatment on the sale of the old rental. Thanks in advance for your assistance. Tom Hollister, CA

This follows up my post earlier this week about doing things twice. It gets even worse when you don't know what you are doing. Situation is this. Company offers employees a pre-tax insurance plan for sickness or disability. One employee was paid from the plan during 2013. The insurance company sent a notice that the employee benefits were paid and they were taxable as wages, and as such needed to be added to the employee's W2. The letter also stated that the employee's FICA was withheld and remitted by the insurance company under the insurance company's EIN and that the employer portion of the FICA needed to be paid by the employer. This is where I get lost a little. I deposited the employer portion of the FICA, no problem there. Then I go back to the 941 and try to make the adjustments and I am getting confused on what to do. This may be my software (not ATX in this case, the company has a payroll module on its accounting package) that is causing the confusion. If I enter the wages into boxes 5a and 5c, and enter the amount of FICA Tax for the employer portion in line 8, I get too much tax due to the wages being taxed on line 5a and 5c. If I don't put the wages into line 5a and 5c, my Schedule B does not show the correct liability for the quarter. And my final question is how the IRS is going to reconcile this when the wages and employer taxes are under my company's EIN and the withholding tax from the employee is under the insurance company's EIN? Sorry if this is basic. I have never had to work with 3rd party sick pay before and I could use some help from you experts who deal with this more frequently. I know how much tax liability I have, and I know how much I need to pay and I paid all the taxes. But I think I may be screwing up the 941 and inviting a letter. BTW, no need to comment on the state aspects of this. I got those returns corrected without an issue. Same with the 940. The employee was over the limit and it did not change the taxes for FUTA or SUI. Just needed to change the gross wages and the excluded amounts and the return was good. The Nevada MBT resulted in a small amount of tax due, but it was not a big deal to fix that form (I complete that one by hand, and white out makes everything better). Thanks for your help. Tom Hollister, CA

IRS announced today that they will open up Free File on the 17th of January, but the free file vendors will hold the returns until the IRS opens for sumbissions on Jan 31st. I can't imagine how many tax returns are going to be setting in the que waiting for the servers to open. I bet it crashes the system. Tom Hollister, CA

I don't have any hair on my head, but I am shaved, not bald. It is a choice, not a condition. At least that is what I tell everybody. Tom Hollister, CA

Kudos to Inkjetsuperstore from me. Good prices and products. Never had a bad cartrige from them. Tom Hollister, CA

I would say the exclusively rented areas are the only portion that can be deducted. I am only aware of one area of the code where mixed personal/business use of a space is allowed, and that is for day care providers. Tom Hollister, CA

Like This That is good to know. Tom Hollister, CA

I just bought a Canon Imageclass 1350 Multifunction. I love it. Duplex printing, feed tray for copies and scans, 500 sheet capacity. I am very happy with the cost and the speed. The cartriges are a bit pricy, but I was able to get the cost down by going to inkjetsuperstore.com for the toner. Tom Hollister, CA

Sounds like a 50K goodwill payment (name, customers, location, etc) and a capital lease for the equipment for $180K (60 payments of $3000). Some portion of that 180K should be interest. The rest should be the cost of the assets. Your client needs to have an equipment list and assign the cost of the lease to those items after deducting the interest. Just my 2 cents. Tom Hollister, CA

KC, if I can highjack this thread, can you tell me how to make a smiley face on a post? I never learned how? Thanks Tom Hollister, CA

So I did my W2's for my day job. Spent most of the day Saturday getting all my reports printed, 941, 940, CA DE9 and DE9C as well as my NV tax payroll tax returns done. Printed all the W2s. Everything ticked and tied. Uploaded to the SSA BSO site. Damn, I was good and it was done for the year by January 4th. Time to start working on clients files. Until the damn insurance company sent that letter that says they paid 3rd party sick pay to one of the employees. Dang it, dang it, dang it..... Now I have to put out a corrected W2 and re do my 941, 940 and NV SUI and MBT returns as well as make another deposit for the employer FICA. Sometimes I feel like the windshield, sometimes I feel like the bug. Today I feel like I went splat! Tom Hollister, CA

Just finished Spidell Tax Update Seminar today, and what Joan says is what they told me today. If you want to pick and choose your years, go ahead. They called it an IRS gift. They also described the method of amending exactly as Lion outlined. However, they did say to attach both original returns to the amended return. Also indicate that the amendment is being done per revenue ruling 2013-17. They also had some info on a form I never heard of before, 8958, to allocate income between individuals in a community property state. I will be checking on that form for my clients that want to go MFS. Tom Hollister, CA

I agree with KC and John. Tom Hollister, CA

Created my own in Excel. It works for my purposes. Tom Hollister, CA

<<seems>> is the operative word. A lot of things in the 2012 program "seemed" to be fine, until they weren't. Just my paranoia. Tom Hollister, CA