EFILE authorization form 8879, FAX OK?

[John of PA]

As you know, To Efile, we must get a signed form 8879 from the client before we send off the return to IRS, and keep the signed form in our files. Does anyone know if it's OK to get the signed form via FAX. That is fax the client form 8879, then the client signs it and faxes it back to me. Or must we keep an original in our files.

[veritas]

Faxed forms are acceptable.

[John of PA]

Faxed 8879

TY very much Veitas!

[Unregistered]

8879

Per instruction, Taxpayer Responsibilities to return completed Form 8879 to ERO by hand delivery, U.S. mail, private delivery service, or fax.

[Koss]

Copies

Fifteen years ago I worked part time for an accountant who did about twenty or thirty individual tax returns a year. The rest of his practice was was bookkeeping, payroll, asset management, or something illegal that he never told me about.

We did tax returns by hand. (This was 15 years ago.) Then, for some of the higher end clients, we put blank forms into a typewriter. This gave the final product a more professional look. I was a very young adult, and he paid me pretty well for this work.

Has anyone on this board actually used a typewriter?

Okay, I'm only 37. I'm sure there's folks on this board that were doing income taxes when I was in diapers.

Anyway, the guy I worked for somehow believed that it was important to distinguish between the "original" tax return and the "copies." He wanted to sign the "original," from the typewriter, and not the "copies." I still don't understand why.

Even 15 years ago, the copier produced very high quality duplicates that were almost indistinguishable from the originals. The typewriter had a black ink ribbon. The entire original tax return was black and white, and so was the photocopy. And the copies were made before anyone signed the return. I thought the "copies" were cleaner. The typewriter ink could smudge; the copies didn't do that.

Today, I have people at my firm who think we're not allowed to use black ink pens for tax returns. They think we are required to use blue ink so that you can tell which document is the original.

Burton

[JG EA]

Typewriter

Ah I remember holding up the typewritten page to see how good the secretary was. You could see the typos that had been erased.

I also remember worrying about where to hyphenate the word and especially worrying about making a mistake toward the end of the page (a whole page to retype).

I remember how great an invention was the white paint to cover mistakes. I even remember a boss throwing out a perfectly good bottle of white out - out the door. It was messing up the typewriter.

[Matt Sova]

40

Koss,

I just turned 40 and yes, I have used a typewriter. In fact, when I was in high school I had a typing class that was taught on the old IBM Selectric's. My parents had this old piece of antiquity (read crap) manual typewriter. I hated that thing, but had to use it to type out reports when I was in school.

I started in this business in 1988, and we had computers with tax software at my first job. I remember one of the machines had a 20 meg (yes meg) harddrive and we needed more space. The boss had another 20 meg HD added to it and we thought "we'll never need any more than this". He had probably 500 1040 clients which explains the need for the software, but I remember having to type out W-2's on the typewriter in the office until we finally wrote a macro on Lotus 1-2-3 (remember that!!) to pull the data we had in the payroll spreadsheet over to the annual section and lay it out so we could print the W-2's on the old, tractor feed, dot-matrix printer.

I look back and wonder how in the heck did anyone ever get anything done or make any money what-so-ever back then.

[John of PA]

Hand written returns:

The first several years of my carreer the returns were done in pencil, then photocopied and the signed copy was sent to IRS. It worked well, but was labor intensive. A sole pratitioner really needed staff support. Now with all the automation, I find, I really don't need a full time employee or secretary, but part time college students are fine. I can do everything right on my screen (print the return, billing, time records, send off to IRS, etc.) Back when they were done by hand, I felt like an artist, that I just competed a work of art. I almost wanted to frame the return and hang it on the wall. The nices thing back then was, if you just wanted to force a figure on a line, you just wrote it in; you did not have to try to figure out how to get the software to do it.

[Unregistered]

CPA = Cut Paste Attach

[Matt Sova]

Cpa

CPA = Cut Paste Attach

Carries Papers Always
Certified Pain in the ***

[Chief]

Looking Backwards

When I was in college, I worked my way thru school by working a trucking companies: ETWNC, Yellow Transit, Roadway to name a few. I worked as a billing clerk. I typed bills of lading on an old Underwood Billing Machine, TWX messages to other terminals, and manifests on an old manual typewriter. We used crossovers and many abbreviations as appearance was not the main concern; accuracy reigned. I still remember NOI for not otherwise indicated.

Of course all of that has been replaced with computer networking.

[John of PA]

Cpa =..........

Carries Papers Always
Certified Pain in the ***

Sounds like we can find on this message board someone to fit each of these descriptions. And if they pass a flat tax and I'am out of a job, I'll just become a CPA (Cleaning, Pressing, Alterations)

[veritas]

We used outsourced computer services. The first comapny was called Computax. You filled out input forms for each client. We then mailed the forms to I think California. The returns came back after they were input and printed. You pretty much held your breath that the return was correct. If it wasn't you had to send in forms to correct the errors which often came back wrong again. Fortunately for me I smoked and drank alot of liquor which smoothed out all the rough spots.

[S T]

Computax

I remember those days, yes in Calif. Actually I think Image One and Gear UP eventually evolved out of that group. The old TCA Group???

I often think, how in the world did I ever do taxes back then, which was all manual no computer in the office. It was nice to receive the finished computer generated product, but we had to manually complete and calculate the income/expenses and tax.

Sandy

[John of PA]

Dynatax

Computax, yes the old service bureau days. We used Dynatax. One year, MC Donnell Douglas, an aerospace company, bought them out so thier leasing company could get the contact for the Mainframe computer leases. Lovely, Dynatax was never the same, it was run into the ground and went on to bankruptcy. We also outsourced general ledger work (what we would do on Quickbooks today) to ADP.