This "retail" 1040 client came in to review and sign in person and was provided a copy of the signed 8879 and his tax return.
His documents were returned to him with the exception of 1 (of the 4) W2 copies. He was ALSO provided a soft copy of his tax return along with the signed 8879 for secure download, which reminded him that we don't store his documents and the link expires in 120 days so please download it and store it with care.
Our engagement agreement politely reminds the client to retain these copies, and that we do not guarantee the availability of copies to the client - which I'm pretty sure is not required of us (we keep them for the IRS, not for the client).
The reason that we wish to avoid providing copies to clients over and over is the obvious time costs. Also, we don't trust our ability to train admin personnel to do it properly, as we have had many critical failures with that.
His original request was for the 2019 and 2020 tax returns. Which we sent him (I don't believe I was required to, but I did it anyway).
Then he came back with a request for the "signed copies", so we told him about the 8879.
Then he asked for those, and I told him no.
Then he came back with "never mind, I found it, but do you have my 2019 and 2020 W2s?".
The problem we often face with our business model that I'm often looking to solve are these "creeping and never ending requests", which I understand is more easily solved by having a classic CPA firm where you bill by the hour.
That's not what we have, and we do pretty good with value billing, as it often exceeds our listed hourly rates.
The reason I post a lot about these is because I'm looking for solutions to the issues that value-only billing creates with a small portion of our clients.
There are pros and cons of value vs hourly, of course.
I'm often seeking to reduce the cons.
Since I'm getting feedback like "honestly, I am kind of surprised at how many situations you encounter that are normally pretty commonplace and quick to resolve. " perhaps I'm posting too much. I'll tone it down and I appreciate your help. (I don't mean that to be passive-aggressive or anything
).