Stephens & Soetenga, CPAs

I was a loyal client of this firm for more than 10 years and, because of my complete lack of confidence with their ability to correctly file my taxes, I will never use them again.
The staff member I normally worked retired due to illness last year and the quality of work since her retirement has suffered. My first inkling of this was during our initial meeting to discuss our 2013 tax return. I asked our new CPA a (I thought) fairly simple question on 1098s. She said she didn’t know. So, while my husband continued to walk through our papers with her, I googled my question, got to the IRS website and gave my CPA the answer to my question. I should have left then.
Our return was prepared quickly and sent to us for signature. Something seemed amiss and I emailed the unsigned return BACK to the firm. «I don’t see the loss due to the sale of our rental property on here,» I put in an email. Later the same day I got a response that «Oooops! We’ve got that in there now. Sorry!» Me catching this omission increased our refund by $ 3,000.00.
One might think the unprofessional service ended there. Nope.
So my husband & I signed the return, attached a $ 540 check for services and dropped it all off at the office. When handing us back our original receipts, the woman at the desk said «Oh, yeah. We also have this for you.»
We were STUNNED to see that our 2010 and 2011 amended returns — which we discussed at length two years ago– had sat, untouched, since then. «You owe $ 1,700.00. We don’t know why this has sat around so long. Sign here and we’ll get them filed,» the woman said.
My husband snatched up all of the papers and said «I do not trust you to touch my taxes. I’ll take them elsewhere.» We left.
A few hours later our CPA called. I am sure it was a difficult call to make and I am appreciative she did call. «I reviewed the 2010 and 2011 amended returns and there is an error. You don’t owe $ 1,700– you owe half that.»
Good grief!
I understand that loosing a long-​term staff member is hard on a small firm. But that is their internal problem, not mine.