By JANE SCHMITT

What's worse than a new client showing up at an accountant's office with a pile of receipts in a shoebox, hungry for a big tax refund?

Someone who shows up that way when the calendar says April 13 or 14.

When Tax Day is just a day or two away and weary tax preparers are seeing their 70-hour workweeks of the last few months finally coming to an end, last-minute filers may find themselves getting familiar with something called an extension form.

How about the client who, unbeknownst to her tax professional, claimed her pooch as a dependent for years? Or the person who opts to file electronically to get the refund right away but, when the check doesn't come, angrily blames the tax preparer? Better check the bank account number you provided for direct deposit because, more than once, it's turned out to be wrong.

All in a day's work, according to Kevin Gibson, a CPA in West Seneca with nearly 20 years of experience. Like other industry veterans, just when he thinks he has seen and heard it all, along comes a new client with a new problem or issue.

"It's funny. We were just talking about this," Gibson says. "Somebody found out that my office manager worked for a tax office and said, ‘Oh, how boring.' And she said, ‘Oh, no, far from it.' Sure, there are long hours and everything else, but we do have our excitement."

His life, it seems, is a series of deadlines. Personal tax returns are due April 15 and corporate returns come due a month before, on March 15. Then there's Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, the extended deadlines for corporate and personal filers, respectively. In January, meanwhile, Gibson and his staff are awash in payroll matters for area companies.

"I'm busy," Gibson says. "I guess I work off the rush of the crunch time."

Still, there are limits to how far he will push himself and his staff, especially when it comes to income-tax returns.

"A lot of (preparers) shut down April 10 so they are not rushing around. I have cut that back now to where, if clients aren't in here by April 6, I don't guarantee the (return) to be out," Gibson says. "I am still here at midnight on the 15th getting one out, though. If I didn't, I wouldn't feel right."

Krull's case studies

Longtime practitioners, such as Gary Krull of Gary Krull & Associates PC in Amherst, have all sorts of client-related tales to tell. Here, the CPA offers some examples. Horror stories? Comic relief? You decide.

• "One year, a client who worked the midnight shift stopped into the office at 11 p.m. on April 14 on his way to work to drop off his tax information and said he could stop back at 8 a.m. the next morning to pick up his completed returns when he got out of work."

• "Every year there are also clients who ‘forgot' they were leaving for Easter vacation on a certain day - and would not return until after April 15 - and need their returns in a day or two. "With Easter on April 12 this coming year, we're ready for that story again," Krull says. "The extension forms are also ready."

• "It is always interesting to hear how clients have a sibling, neighbor or co-worker who deducts things that are clearly not legitimate deductions, and ask why they can't claim these things. I tell them they can put anything they want to on their return, as long as they prepare it themselves."

Says Krull: "Having been involved in this business for 24 years, we joke in the office that we could write a novel about some of the characters and their situations they want to make our problem. Some will have their own chapter in the book. When you're dealing with a system with 14,000-plus pages of rules and regulations and hundreds of people with their unique situations, anything and everything can and does happen.

"We look at most of these stories as comedies," he adds, "because at times all you can do to keep your sanity is to laugh."

Great expectations

In his profession, deadlines aren't the only pressure being felt.

"Time management continues to be the biggest challenge I face each tax season," Krull says. "We render a personal service, and addressing each client's needs and situations in a finite time period is a daunting task.

"Every year there are clients not only dealing with their taxes, but with life in general: the death of a spouse or child, loss of a job, divorce, as well as job promotions, lottery winnings, capital gains and retirement. It's like 700 mini-family reunions in an 11-week period."

Gibson, meanwhile, chuckles at the clueless client who came in looking for a hefty refund but ended up owing the IRS tens of thousands of dollars.

"He was new and it was the first time we did the return, and we haven't seen him since," he says.

Then there was the recently divorced couple who filed a joint return. After processing it, Gibson informed the gentleman what was owed: "six thirty-four." It was only after the clients left that he discovered the man mistakenly wrote a check for $6.34 instead of $634.

"When we called his ex to say there was a misunderstanding, she couldn't stop laughing," Gibson says. "She thought that was the funniest thing she had ever heard."

The dog days

Sam Chiodo, meanwhile, is president of Chiodo Accounting Service Inc. in Lackawanna. He says he prepares more than 1,500 returns each year. After Tax Day, however, "I'm out of here," he says. "I usually go to my condo on April 16."

"The worst part of my tax season are the first two weeks and the last two weeks," Chiodo says. "The first two weeks, everybody wants their money. The last two weeks, people know they have a deadline. We do about 600 returns in those (final) weeks."

His best story?

"It goes back quite a few years, prior to when the IRS required Social Security numbers. I had a lady who came in and one year said, ‘Take Scott off of my tax.' I said, ‘Geez, I'm sorry to hear that. He was so young.' And she said, ‘Well, in dog years he was.' She had been claiming her dog for years!"

Jane Schmitt is an Amherst freelance writer.