JohnH

Is it our politicians who are imbeciles, or might it be the voters? I said this on the TMI forum and I stand by it - I think our politicians by and large have learned well from WC Fields' character (Larsen E. Whipsnade): "... my granddaddy said right before they sprung the trap, 'Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump' ".

If ATX won't provide the check box, and if you have several clients in this situation, maybe it would be helpful to design an Excel spreadsheet to divide the income & expenses automatically. All you'd need would be 3 columns (maybe a 4th for proofs). After setting up the worksheet to mirror the line order for the Schedule C, you're ready to go. Enter the applicable percentage for each spouse in a cell at the top (50% in most cases, but I'd use the field just in case I had a situation that is unique), then set each column to allocate the total expense for each line item to the respective spouse. Enter the amounts in the first column and let the spreadsheet do the work, then transfer the amounts to the separate Schedule C's. Not as handy as checking a box on the return, but still better than paper & pencil. It's probably possible to create the worksheet within ATX, although I prefer to work directly in Excel because the ATX custom worksheets are usually missing some feature I like to use.

You're right - I don't use the stapler unreasonably. I reserve hassling the authorities for only those situations in which it's clearly called for. I seem to recall the post about the pencil eraser as well, but unfortunately it wasn't me. However, some of the red beads on my abacus broke off due to overuse, so if you run across any of those I'd be most grateful if you'd send them along. (I can't even find any of those suckers on ebay right now)

I have several clients who use PO Boxes and have never encountered any sort of problem. I've always regarded the instruction as a suggestion, rather than a requirement.

When they pry my stapler from my cold, dead hands, at least they'll be able to say "He made pretty good use of his computers, but he never surrendered to the e-flilnging pressure."

I'm thinking that if I get any of these this year I'm going to tell them they will have to go on extension to give them and me time to sort it all out. There may be exceptions to that rule if the matter is clear-cut and simple, but for most of them this is not a routine tax prep and they need the best attention I can give - certainly not while the main rush is going on.

Does she buy toys for the kids to play with? Does she buy diapers, Desitin, or other such personal-care supplies to keep as spares if the parents forget to bring them? Bibs, high chairs, booster seats? CD's or VCR tapes to entertain the kids on rainy days or to play at nap time?

Tell him next time to make the SEP contribution after the first of the current year. Then he can allocate the proper amount to the prior year and the excess to the current year. (Although it doesn't sound like he listens to advice very well).

Think "Star Wars"... Then get back to work!

Yeah, I think everybody had bagged this deduction.

Smart boyfriend. (Wish I had been that smart when I was dating many, many years ago). He might be a keeper.

I'd be a little cautious about waiting to take the credit until the legislation passes. One never knows when a poorly-worded phrase such as relief for "Taxpayers who have already claimed the credit" might be in there, rather than "Taxpayers eligible for the credit between ___ and ___ " or some other more broadly-worded phrase. Stranger things have happened, and then at best you're hoping & praying for a Technical Correction somewhere in the future. Of course, that's only an issue with hastily-written legislation. In this case since the Congress clearly has its head on straight and isn't trying to get something done by an arbitrary deadline, there's probably nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if some momentous occasion such as President's Day is the controlling factor, there might be reason for concern. Oh, I'm probably just rambling for no reason here...

This may be a bit of a stretch, but it seems to me that the Home Buyer's Credit operates in practice in much the same way as a Sec 179 depreciation deduction. You get to derive a tax benefit now in exchange for giving something up in the future. Repaying the credit is the equivalent of paying the tax on the phantom income related to the principal payments on a loan used to finance an asset on which Sec 179 was taken in year 1. So in theory it should be about as easy to explain the repayment of the credit at no interest as it would be to explain the phantom income to a business client. Of course, the problem arises in the implementation, since people seldom want to think about long-term consequenses of something that they like to think of on a year-to-year basis. I'm not preparing any returns claiming the Home Buyer's Credit, preferring to send anyone eligible to HRB or JH. But my suggestion to them would be to use the credit to, in order: 1) Pay down high-interest credit cards; 2) Pay down non-tax-deductible auto loans: 3) Pay down second mortgages or HELOC accounts: 4) Make additional principal payments on the home mortgage. Unfortunately, most of them are going to use it as a down payment on a hot tub, boat, or motorcycle and them gripe for the next 15 years about how the credit is costing them $500/yr.

If you really want to mess with their minds, paper clip the forms together and then put a staple over one prong of the paper clip. But only do this if the client owes money.

I used Ultra Tax before coming over to ATX, and they had an alternate "Forms Entry". You toggled using an icon at the top of the page. I used it, but found it cumbersome because you never knew what entries could be entered directly and what entries had to be entered via the worksheet. It was better than worksheet entry only, but still not as seamless as ATX. I'll be interested in hearing more about how Drake handles it, as that is the software I'll most likely go to if I ever give up on ATX.

Did she do any baby sitting in 2008? :)

You have two choices: 1) The default is to allocate income or loss based on the number of days each shareholder owned their stock times the percentage of ownership. 2) However, if all shareholders agree, you can make an election to treat the corporation as having two short years. Unless there's a significant difference in the amounts allcoated to the shareholders, it isn't worth the time & trouble to use the election.

---> #4 also reminds me of the non-client caller who says, "I have a question for you." I always want to say something smart like: "Oh, that's ok, I've already had one today. Thanks anyway! Click. <----- I've been working on a reply to the "I have a question for you." So far it goes something like this: Caller: "I have a quick question for you." Me: "I answer one question for free, but I charge for the second question and everything after that ." Caller" "How much do you charge?" Me: "$110 per hour. What's your second question and your billing address?"

Not necessarily so. We may be seeing the ones with the minor problems when compared with the ones they had to pass on. Who knows where they set the bar?

I checked the returns I've already filed, none of which are eligible for the RRC, and I noticed that the RRC line is blank. According to the memo, even the blank space will hold up the processing while they check it out. That's odd, since we aren't required to enter zeros on other lines which don't apply. These are paper-filed returns, so a delay of a day or two won't matter that much to them. But just to be on the safe side I guess I'll start entering the zero. (Wonder if the master can be modified to automatically enter a zero unless it's overridden).

My pet peeve is still the client (actually a couple of them), who will sit down and proceed to hand me their paperwork one piece at a time: "Here's my w-2, and here's my wife's w-2, and here's my mortgage statement, and here's the interest from the credit union (is that all the interest I made last year?), and here's my goodwill receipt, and here's my...". I'm still trying to figure out the best respose - somebody help me out here: 1) "Wow, so that's what a w-2 form looks like! Thanks for pointing it out to me." 2) "Don't you want to read me all the numbers before handing me the papers?" 3) "Z-Z-Z-Z Oh, sorry I dozed off there for a minute" 4) "Gimme that #$%$* pile of forms and sit there quietly! If I have any questions I'll ask you!"

I just now tried it and it worked fine. I'm not preparing a tax return or anything - just wanted to see if it would work using my own information. Of course, that probably means somebody further down in the queue got an error message because I was taking up bandwidth. If so, I offer my apology.

I agree with Terry. Most subs won't notice the filing date, and the critical thing is getting the government copies in on time anyhow.

I remember them all - as a teenager I even worked for a while delivering milk in the glass bottles. We'd start about 4 am and ride along standing in the doorway of the truck - had to learn the art of jumping off while the truck was still n motion and not dropping a metal carrier holding 4 bottles of milk. This was so my co-worker could jump off at the next couple of houses, and the driver would then stop the truck & deliver his 4 bottles. We'd then run to catch up with the truck before the driver got back in and off we'd go again to the next delivery point. Whenever someone mentions the "good old days" I recall a story my father-in-law would tell. Sam would describe a big two-story house they lived in that only had a free-standing coal heater and 3-4 fireplaces. In the bathroom was one of those porcelain bathtubs that stood on curved decorative legs and had two 4-prong fancy handles for hot & cold water. One really cold morning he got up, fired up the coal heater, and went into the bathroom only to find that the pipes had frozen all the way inside the house and those two fancy handles had popped off & were lying in the bathtub. Said he almost broke into tears when he realized what had happened. As Sam sat in his modern brick home with central heat & air, he'd finish the story by saying "Whenever somebody starts yapping about the 'good old days', I just remember standing there shivering in my nightshirt staring at those two #@#&** handles lying in that bathtub."

They're going to penalize him for 2007 anyhow, so why not just send a check with the 944?