Publishing and Release date

[Loophole]

I am on several tax listservs and one of the constant gripes is the early cut off dates for The Tax Book and your competitiors products.

Many of us would like to see you wait longer to publish so ylaou can have the most current information- including tax changes made near year end either by Congress, via IRS rulings, court decisions, etc.

We really don't need the book December 15th.

Frankly many of us would be a lot happier if we had the book by the end of January in that it would allow you more time to to get the latest changes in the book.

I know a number of us have said we will buy whatever book has the latest cutoff book.

Since more and more changes seem to take place at or near year end it is more important thatn ever not to go to print to early with your publication.

Perhaps you could print a second edition of the Tax Book that would not be released until late January for those of us who would rather wait.

I know a lot of us who bought the Tax Book this past year did so because the previous year the Quickfinder book went to bed so early it lacked a lot of important changes. I fear the same thing could happen to The TaxBook if you insist on such an early deadline.

Lew Wiener

[Bees Knees]

I disagree. Most tax pros including myself want their books in December. Waiting until January when I am too busy with payroll taxes and corporation returns is unacceptable, as I no longer have time to read up and study the new stuff.

With the new Web CD offered by TheTaxBook, which automatically updates itself for new stuff, new tax laws should no longer be a problem.

BTW, do you tell your software company to wait until all possible tax law changes hit before sending you your software? I think not.

[Bird Legs]

release date

I, also , like to receive the book in December, at least by the middle of Dec.
In Jan. am busy with payroll reports, W-2s, etc. in addition to the early tax clients.

[Jiggers]

Disagree

December 15th is not too early. I like to have something in my hands early so that I can review before tax season. January 1st or whatever date in January is too late. I am too busy with payroll reports and other year-end stuff to have time to review the TaxBook, Quickfinder, or whatever.

Back in 2004, with the new tax law that was passed then, Quickfinder offered a book on the new tax legislation. I ordered it right away, but Quickfinder didn't ship so that I received December 29, 2004.

I wanted the information for my clients that wanted some year-end tax advice, especially if the new tax law would pertain to them and could they postpone something until later, or make a decision on it for 2004.

I was expecting it to be out by December 1st.

It was absolutely useless and I did not get to use it as I was out of time in January.

I should have sent it back.

[Scarecrow]

I know a lot of us who bought the Tax Book this past year did so because the previous year the Quickfinder book went to bed so early it lacked a lot of important changes. I fear the same thing could happen to The TaxBook if you insist on such an early deadline.

Maybe you should put 2 + 2 together. Had you ever complained about Quickfinder early release dates prior to 2004?

[Brad Imsdahl]

Thank you for the suggestion, but our policy of providing customers with their book by December 15th is a policy based on years of experience, and will not change. I have been producing tax books since 1988, and I know what happens when people do not get their book by the end of the year. Sure, there is always going to be a need to update our book after December 15th. But I also remember a year Congress passed major retroactive tax changes mid way through March, long after many returns had been filed. No delay in publishing the book would have prevented problems in that year.

As has been pointed out already, we are the first tax reference book publisher that will now provide automatic updates over the Internet for our electronic version. Anything that needs updating in our book will be done for you on our Web CD. Even if you generally don’t like using electronic versions of the book, I think you will want this product as it will provide you with clean updated PDF files that will look just like your original printed copy of the book. That means you could simply print out the affected pages and tape them over pages in your hard copy version, if you choose to do so.

I see the future of the tax business going paperless. Software is becoming more and more important in our industry. The publishing business needs to keep up with the times. If your tax software is updated automatically over tax season, why doesn’t your tax reference manual do the same? Now it will for those who choose TheTaxBook Web CD, and I believe you will see others copy our concept in the future as customers learn to demand that service from the publishing industry.

[veritas]

Ah this reminds me of the good old days when we had a service come in to update our Prentice Hall Tax service on a monthly basis. I sure wish we could go back to that.

[S T]

Receive in December

I like receiving the Reference Material, i.e. The Tax book, in December. I have my early releases of Tax Software usually sometime mid November, and we are processing the prior year conversion and updates, mailouts to clients, etc. We like to try to have all in place by early January, as we also have payroll, year end reports, etc to deal with and not much time to review the tax changes once January arrives.

I am anxiously awaiting to test out the new WEB CD, so between that and the update reminders, I am not so concerned about The Tax Book desk reference book not containing the last minute information. Seems we will still have the information available to insert into our Books.

I am amazed at how quickly the authors/editors supply us with the updated information now.

Now I just have to call customer service to change my order!

Sandy