Forms I'd like to see

For those of us who don't attempt to remember form numbers what is F8830?
I hope Pro Series includes the new refund account option form for 2006.
taxea

I'd like to see the K-1 worksheets have more categories under Line 11, Seems Proseries thinks Remic is the prime category. I see many with Section 988 gains and losses etc.

More forms we would all like to see:

Form 8830 (Oil Recovery - on the individual return)
Form 5227 (Split Interest Trusts)
Form 5452 (Nontaxable Dividend)
Form 1128 (Tax Year Change)
Form 5471 (CFC)
Form 926 (US Transfer of Prop to F/C)
Form 3520 (Foreign Trusts/Gifts)
Form W-2/W-3/1099/1042 (Would seem to make sense)
Form 5500EZ (Wishful Thinking)
Form P.C. (Massachusetts public charity)

Some of the above forms are purely informational reporting and don't require integration with tax computations. One would think those would be easy to provide.

Add to that:

Form 8844 (Empowerment Zone Credit)

How about expanding the selections for types of depreciabile assets for Form 8829? Presently you have the choice of M Home Office and N Home Office Improvment. Suppose the client puts in a sidewalk and driveway, a land improvement of 15 year life, or needs to amortize financing costs. If you use the 'no category' selection you get an error message, and if you include these on regular Sch C depreciation, using the same percentage of use as the 8829, you could run afoul of there being a loss on Sch C and therefore the deduction should not be allowed.

I THINK IT IS VERY POOR BUSINESS THAT PROSERIES DOES NOT HAVE ALL STATE CORPORATE AND PARTNERSHIP RETURNS AVAILABLE.

"MAINE" TAX FORMS ARE NOT AVAILABLE BECAUSE THERE IS NOT ENOUGH DEMAND FOR THE PRODUCT.

HOW UNPROFESSIONAL OF PROSERIES.......

I think ProSeries needs to include the 5500 and the 5500EZ. But Intuit keeps saying threre is not enough requests for these forms and you should use Lacerte's PPR program to do them. I have paid for a 'Professionals Choice Product' but it is not a complete product!

Organizer pages for Form 2555. There are a hugh number of questions clients living abroad need to answer. Where are they in our organizer?

Also an organizer for foreign taxpayers who have to file a 1040NR. They have a unique group of questions that need to be answered for the tax return to be complete.

The IRS approved 8907 to be efiled for 2006 tax year. Other software companies offer it, but not ProSeries. What's the problem? Am I the only one that needs this form? I've used ProSeries for approx. eight (8) years and I'm disappointed with the response I have received thus far from the Tech Support & etc.

I have to do an Idaho partnership return manually every year for one of my multi state LLC clients. I can feel your pain.

There has got to be a limit to the number of forms any computer software can provide. The higher the cost of the software, the more forms there should be. I do not know(yet) how many forms Drake, for example, has in its software, but since it is so much LESS EXPENSIVE than ProSeries one might assume that it has fewer forms available.

PS costs a lot more than Drake, so it must have more forms available. RIGHT? Lacerte has more forms, right? ProSystem has more forms, right?

Drake and ProSystem allow e-filing of state business returns. And they are more expensive(oops! not Drake). And PS costs a lot more than Drake, and less than Lacerte and ProSystem. And PS does not allow state e-filing of businesses.

There should be a correlation between price and functionality.
RIGHT? I guess not always.

My suggestion is to switch to a better program like UltraTax by Creative Solutions. It's more expensive, but you get what you pay for. Our firm switched to ProSeries this year and it's been nothing but a nightmare. The data conversion was so minimal and the program itself is useless. I'll probably spend 200 hours doing entrie that our old program did automatically.

I wouldn't discourage anyone who is dissatisfied with ProSeries from switching to some other product. But as for me, I will NEVER consider another Creative Solutions product. CSI has by far the worst customer service and tech support I have have ever experienced.

Chuck

Drake is less?

I am evaluating another practitioner who uses Drake. Drake is $1,395 for the first year, $995 to renew each year, and it supposedly has everything. Including state business e-filing.

I have not yet reviewed the software, but I truly wonder if this other CPA finds it sufficient, and his practice is bigger than mine, and he earns more for his work per return than I do, then maybe Drake isn't so bad.

Please cease and desist using the screen name razorslim

The name "Razorslim" is a licensed trademark owned by my client and is protected by US copyright and trademark laws

Regards

Thomas A. Smith III
Attorney

Well, I haven't priced unlimited versions of the various packages out there, but I can tell you that I LOVE ProSeries PPR. I do just a very few returns, and it actually works out to be cheaper for me than TurboTax, not to mention that it's a professional product with superior functionality.