Lion EA

Sorry, Joan. Our pets are our family, and missing them does get in the way of work. Give yourself permission to grieve.

But, he didn't send me a message! I think I'm insulted.

I probably pay a lot more for CCH SiteBuilder than an ATX customer does! (Even though my price didn't change, FileShare was not just "there" but I had to choose it.)

Pub 519 Pub 501 Pub 901 1040NR? or 1040? U.S. Income Tax Returns for Visa Holders by Jean Mammen, EA Also, think about FATCA and FUBAR/FInCEN

I use the simpler CCH FileShare that's free on my CCH SiteBuilder website.

Both those recommendations came from current Purdue students. So when they worried about price, I told them dad lives in LINY and can afford Indiana prices!

I can also check on my eFaxes from any device with an internet connection, not just from my email. I used to have an 800 number from eFax, but now that my phones have national plans, I chose a local number that I liked. I pay annually to keep the cost down and also have the smallest plan since I don't receive/send a lot of faxes. I can send anything that's already stored on my computer. For paper that's not stored, I still have my old stand-alone inkjet fax on a plain vanilla landline (so I can always call out during a power failure by plugging a phone into that jack) to send faxes; it's also my scanner and copier and color printer, but I don't use it for tax returns. But, I use eFax for most faxes.

I don't mail returns; that's the client's job if they choose not to e-file. I have dropbox for an volunteer organization that was sharing pictures from an event for a slide show (Appalachia Service Project where one of the college students was organizing the slide show and chose to use Dropbox). Never use it for business purposes. Yesterday a pop-up showed up saying I had a new file in Dropbox! Obviously wanting me to open a link. I haven't touched DropBox since last July when the slide show was being put together.and won't. I was going to remove it, but my church does send out the Sunday bulletins to participants, and I'm a lay reader this Sunday, and it's snowing so I don't want to drive to church today to get a bulletin to prepare my readings, etc. I still might remove Dropbox today -- either with or without downloading the bulletin. My husband, the church organist, uses Dropbox to proofread the bulletins from home. He recently received a similar pop-up on his personal computer. Get Dropbox off your business computers!

I use eFax. And, it doesn't wake me up like my free-standing fax machine does when that client just has to fax me at 5:30 a.m. before they go to work -- and I just went to bed! Can delete, save electronically, &/or print. Send and receive. Got to pick my own fax number, too.

Another Purdue friend, this one a guy: There's a couple chains like outback and Texas Roadhouse about 15 minutes off campus in Lafayette. Closer to campus there's a really good pub called nine Irish brothers that has a pretty good steak and some really good Irish pub food.

From a Purdue friend: Mountain Jacks is my personal favorite - it's a little pricey, and it's pretty far off campus, but the food is amazing! Make sure you have your son eat in at least one of the school's cafeterias/dining halls/food courts. It's gotta feel like it could be his home for four years.

My AT&T allows me to use WiFi for calls, data, everything, when available and not waste my minutes. Because I have WiFi at home and AT&T has a LOT of hot spots and I even have WiFi at the kid's Inn in the middle of the Moosic Mountains along the Delaware River in the middle of nowhere, PA, I don't use up minutes to use data. Although, we'd had a grandfathered plan for years that was unlimited until adding a fifth line was going to kick us off that plan. We get to share, so two of the kids that use a lot of data don't get dinged for overages since I don't use much data on my line. AT&T has been pushing some cheap plans lately after acquiring someone else, T-Mobile maybe. Might be a good time to shop around.

Check your state law. Each state determines how long a company has to decide to forgive debt/write it off their books/stop actively trying to collect it. I remember from a seminar, banks in many states have three years, but other states have different regulations, such as six years.

Merger, acquisition, buy-out, holding company, sister bank in another state, dba name,whatever. I think Sunrise Banks sound friendlier than Civista Bank. What or who is a Civista, anyway?! I don't do bank products, but I would call Civista to ask them what's going on.

What I saw a lot of in this area over the last two years is that insurance companies were canceling policies that were not MEC-compliant and selling more expensive compliant policies to employers (individuals, too). So there aren't many non-compliant policies out there, not in CT anyway. Did she call the marketplace every time someone in her household got a raise? I just saw three sets of 1095-As for my son and his wife: one set for the beginning of 2016, a second set when she called with reduced working hours/income at the end of June, and a third when she called in October with an increased family size/birth of a baby. Haven't prepped their joint return yet, but hope it reconciles. At least she notified the marketplace like I told her to!

Congress' definition of wealthy is someone with a job who's not on EIC.

His needs do not fit your business model. You do not specialize in his type of return. He would be better served by someone with more time/different expertise/larger staff/pick what fits. You are not taking new clients. You do not accept new clients after January of each tax season. Keep it short and sweet with no detail he can argue with. Smile, and look a bit sorry!

I fill it out so when it sells, it'll be in my program. And, so I don't get nagged by a future preparer.

I've heard of taxpayers telling the marketplace their take-home pay instead of gross. Or, failing to contact the marketplace with raises, changes in family size, moving, etc. Yeah, we get to be the bearer of bad news, not to mention the time-consuming calculations to reconcile on the tax return and to reconcile to the client.

Yep. Divorced is when you can actually split the child benefits that usually stay with the child. The physical custody (using IRS rules) parent retains things such as HOH and EIC and childcare credit that require custody but she/he can sign away the dependency exemption with 8832 to the noncustodial parent who could then take the exemption and child tax credit. Each can take the medical expenses they actually paid, I think. This summary was off the top of my head, so jump in to edit. OP had a child who paid more than half her own support. Are you sure? Did you have them fill out a support worksheet? In my area, I've yet to have a college student who paid more than half her own support, even last year of college when getting a full-time job. Between housing and insurance and food and car/insurance/gasoline/maintenance and clothing and sports equipment and trips and...I've yet to see one of my Fairfield County clients have a kid who paid more than half her own support, even if she used student loans to pay tuition.

I do have the run-into-my-home-office-to-just-check-on-something moments when I would love to stand at a desk, even though those moments turn into hours and days when you move on to something else or another client calls. As it is now, I lean over to make that quick check and stay leaning much longer than I intended to. And my usual sitting position, no matter how hard I try to concentrate on my posture, degenerates quickly into hunching over my computer. I love that chair and would probably even pay the $1,400 for it -- if I could find time to clean up my office so I could use such a chair, or even a standing desk, and have a credenza system to hold my piles or other office clean-up to handle storage and active files and reference materials and.... (I have a desk I bought on Craigslist that ends in a mini-conference table that's still in my basement years later. It has no drawers, so I have to rearrange, move things around, etc., to fit the desk in and still retain enough storage drawers/shelves. I just haven't made the time to measure, move, reshelve, clean out, straighten up, etc., to put it to use. Luckily, I didn't pay much for it. But, I do want to work it in someday.)

Me too. I've sent hubby to get the door, even though he's in his pjs too!

If you send me some dark chocolate, I'll put in a good word for you!

Yeah, that's what I like about CCH's eSign: free license, pay a small fee per signature, pay a not as small fee per verified signature (8879s), no minimums. I think it all happens automatically if I choose to check a box when I complete the return, return for review and signature pages to client. Figured if I need it a couple of times, it's worth the few dollars/signature.