Last time i asked a few year ago, tech support told me there were about 45,000 firms using Lacerte. It's possibly down a little now, since Drake has taken some more of the market share. Let's say it's 40,000 firms, or at least 100,000 preparers. Of those, at this writing, less than 250 have joined this discussion about fillable PDF organizers.
What does that say about the remaining 99,750 others who are blasie about this basic issue? Lacerte can easily afford to lose all 250 of us, and it wouldn't matter to them an iota. They can raise their fees $1.00 per preparer and more than make up for the revenue loss. Indeed, maybe they would be glad to get rid of all of us trouble-makers in favor of appeasing the complacent and indifferent remainder with their continued baloney.
As long as the other major competitors do not have fillable PDFs, there's no competitive disadvantage within our profession. However, it's not the point. The competition is outside the bubble of tax preparation community. They have set the public's expectations, not the tax community. It's the rest of the world which has made us look like backwards fools.
