Debs, you're talking about the amount of withholding they do for you at work, right?

 

CAUTION #1: Rob can easily take this $$ comment and extrapolate into your gross monthly paycheck. In fact, I could probably come pretty close and I'm just a dumb architect.

CAUTION #2: Are you saying that you submitted a fraudulent return last year?

This is not VSA....I am completely serious.

 

Jerry,

Deb is talking about her paycheck, not her tax return. She had been withholding at the rate of married and she changed her withholding status to single. Even though more is deducted from her check she is less likely to have an under withholding penalty.

She is simply bringing her withholding status into line with her filing status.

 

Whoops, you're right about #2....but I think #1 still applies....at least to get to the right tax bracket. OTOH, maybe there are too many additional variables

Luckily, Deb is sound asleep and won't know about this until the morning. I would not want her to lose any over this.

 

Well, I'm up now and wouldn't have lost any regardless...Except for the fact that, when the accountant sends me my 2004 return, I'm gonna take a pretty big hit. Oh well, money isn't everything (it's the only thing - HAHA). I'm a big believer in not worrying about the things I cannnot change.

 

Excellent perspective! That's the spirit!

 

Rob, I feel for ya. Before I moved and opened my own practice I worked 7 days a week from mid February till April 15th. Of course I made 3 times what I make today. Now I work about 4 weekend days during tax season. this one though, I am behind and working today (Sat) and tomorrow Easter.
Here in California, the Franchise Tax Board mandated that any preparers filing over 100 returns MUST E-file them all (with a couple exceptions). They started this last tax season, so I am used to it now and actually like it. Saves some time (not lots, but some) and a good amount of paper. I also try to get my clients to use electronic organizers, but that hasbn't been received as well. Do you use that?
I, too, am amazed at the W-2s. Maybe 5+ years ago a good engineers salary was $75-125,000, now routinely I see 140,000 -180,000, and up. Of course the median priced home around the bay area is about 600,000 and you don't get a lot for that.

 

Dean,

With one or two exceptions my clients are very reluctant to use the electronic organizer. At best they will let me e-mail an organizer to them in .pdf format. They print it out, fill it in and mail it back to me. Next year I'm going to go on a campaign with my clients in December to get them to try the e-organizer.

E-filing is very good. Aside from everything else, I am now sure that my clients are filing on time. I consider it an extra level of customer service. We don't charge for it, we just do it as part of the tax prep service.

What I am liking very much this season is my software's ability to print the returns, or selected portions of the returns to .pdf files that I can e-mail to the client. This is saving me a great deal of time and trouble.

 

Being close to Silicon Valley, I have a few clients that sleep with their computers. A few think the E-Organizer is the next best thing to sliced bread. Boy when I email it, they email it back, I e-file and then send their return in a .pdf file, there isn't much paper being used. And zero stamps!
I only have a few that want the pdf file, but I find it really handy non-tax season when people are too lazy to find and copy their return for loan packages, and ask me to send a copy to xyz broker. I always ask if I can email it, and it's always "sure". Takes about 2 minutes.
I'm on Lacerte, are you?
Less than 3 weeks..................

 

We use Creative Solutions/Ultra Tax. And just for fun I play with Intuit's ProSeries.

Both Ultra Tax and Lacerte are head and shoulders above ProSeries, but I use it for a few private clients that I do on my own.

I use the .pdf files exactly the same way. This season I've been sending tax returns to the clients via e-mail. I ask them to print out the 8879/8879NJ and sign and return it. It speeds up the process. Much better than waiting for the mail.