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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Hermann who wrote (7478)	7/31/1999 3:35:00 AM
From: Ken	Respond to of 9818

Watch how many will not declare self-employment income if they are up but not able to exercise their normal threat of audit or worse. Wait until no refunds are sent. April 15, 2002 is a more realistic date for them than next April 15.

To: Mike Hermann who wrote (7478)	7/31/1999 10:16:00 AM
From: Rarebird	Respond to of 9818

Even the government is in on the act. y2k-news.co.uk

To: Mike Hermann who wrote (7478)	7/31/1999 1:03:00 PM
From: B.K.Myers	Respond to of 9818

Hi Mike, Tax returns are not due until April 15. Income tax returns are not due until April 15, but quarterly payroll and estimated returns are due quarterly. For large and medium sized companies, the payroll returns are due monthly. Companies with fiscal years different from the calendar year have to file by the 15th day of the 4th month after the close of their fiscal year. So some returns will be due January 15, 1999. The IRS will have to start dealing with Y2K issues in January and February. Quarterly and monthly payroll returns and quarterly estimate returns are due in January. W-2's have to be filed by the end of January. The IRS used dates extensively in their processing. Penalties and interest are calculated in days and some of these calculations will involve cross century calculations starting in January 2000. I don't know what technique the IRS has chosen to use for remediation, but I suspect they are using windowing. Windowing is the most code intensive method for remediation. It is also the method that is most prone to errors. We have been seeing about 6 to 10 errors per system in our remediated code. Interesting enough, the errors rates are occurring both after the software has been moved into production, and then more errors are found when we time machine test the remediated software. So I guess the real rate of errors has been in the 12 to 20 errors per system. I have also seen this same rate of error mentioned by others that are involved in Y2K projects. I suspect that the IRS has prioritized their systems and will fix them in their order of importance and date of failure. Even so, with all of their systems, the fixes will have to be tested and implement at many locations. Since the IRS basis runs a “distributed” type of system, the co-ordination of these upgrades will have to be well managed. They don't have a “central” database. They have separate databases maintained by each of the regional centers. I have my sincere doubts that the IRS will have smooth transition into the next century and the repercussion could be very serious. B.K.