New Client Check Up

[Abby Normal]

When a new individual client comes in, we have a checklist for setting them up. One thing we check is the state real estate records for their house (fortunately, MD has a very nice website for doing this). We need to know if they're in town limits, but we also check whose name the house is in, when they bought it, how much they paid, how many square feet the home is, and whether they've applied for the homestead tax credit. So far this year, two new clients had not applied for the homestead credit. This can save them 100s or even 1,000s a year in real estate taxes.

Just an FYI as a value added service, in case your state has a similar situation.

[RitaB]

29 minutes ago, Abby Normal said:

value added service

I'm just over here trying to decide whether to call new client or not.  He's called twice and dropped the name of my most PITA client.  Yay.

I'm wondering if this is a PITA added referral. 

[Lion EA]

Do NOT call.  If he reaches you, tell him you have no openings for new clients this season.

[Pacun]

Read other post about free efile and then call him. Grab as many clients as you can now. Remember our 30% of the population limitation.

[Medlin Software, Dennis]

There is some amount of money which will remove the PITA flag from any client.  The trick is knowing what that amount is.  In the extreme, one 500k per year customer might actually be easier than 500 at 1k per year.

While not PITA related, I often get asked about creating a Mac version of our software.  I always say I am willing, for the price it would take to at least break even.  No one "bites", because it would be cheaper to buy a PC and printer every year, just for one program... With Apple not yet, in all these years, having reached 10% of desktop users, the market is too small for something other than a very specialized program which cannot be had on a PC.  (Gone are the days when the publishing world all used Apple because the defacto publishing software was Apple only.)

[Yardley CPA]

Here's a great site the State of New Jersey offers which provides real estate tax information including prior year amounts, lot, block numbers. 

https://wwwnet1.state.nj.us/Treasury/Taxation/TYTR_TLSPS_WEB/Taxlistsearch.aspx

 

[Abby Normal]

Oooo! We need a stickied post for real estate records by state! They really come in handy.

I have a a helluva time finding real estate records in some states. A lot of states keep them by county instead of statewide. Delaware and Florida come to mind.

Here's MD:

http://sdat.dat.maryland.gov/RealProperty/Pages/default.aspx

And here's MD business entity search:

https://egov.maryland.gov/BusinessExpress/EntitySearch

[Yardley CPA]

I was thinking the same thing, Abby.

 

 

[Yardley CPA]

Here's the Pennsylvania site:

http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/Pennsylvania-Assessor-and-Property-Tax-Records.htm

In my opinion, it does not provide as much useful information as the New Jersey site.

 

[Pacun]

ADMINISTRATOR:

Please take my comments and post these links the same way you posted "Tips and Tricks". I think you can delete all comments that are not related or the ones without any links so we have only the juice.

[RitaB]

On ‎2‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 4:45 PM, RitaB said:

I'm just over here trying to decide whether to call new client or not.  He's called twice and dropped the name of my most PITA client.  Yay.

I'm wondering if this is a PITA added referral. 

Well, this gentleman is delightful and neat as a pin.  I guess you can't judge a book by the cover of the other book they referenced. 

[jklcpa]

21 hours ago, Pacun said:

ADMINISTRATOR:

Please take my comments and post these links the same way you posted "Tips and Tricks". I think you can delete all comments that are not related or the ones without any links so we have only the juice.

I quoted the posts into a new topic to keep this one intact. Hope that is helpful.