Top Tax Pros

I am self-​employed (s-​corp) and have a few rental properties. I will recount my experience with this firm as accurately as possible:
1) Brian sent me a client form and fax cover sheet (!?!) he wished to be completed, which asked for our personal details, who our child care provider is, and if we had taken any vocational courses that year. Why he wanted only that info I don’t know, but I thought it was a little. incomplete.
2) He couldn’t open my QuickBooks file no matter how he told me to save it. I have QuickBooks 2013. These things happen, but in the end he blamed his failure to complete my tax returns on this — I am puzzled as to what he could have gotten out of my QB file that he couldn’t get from my financial statements and previous year’s tax returns.
3) I exported my financial statements into Excel and gave those to him. 6 Sheets: P&L and balance sheet for personal, corp and rentals. After a few days he asked me for a bunch of information that was very plainly in the Excel file. I asked him why he is asking me for this information when it’s right there, and he said he couldn’t find the info. I highlighted it for him on a screenshot and sent him on his way. Maybe he didn’t know how to go to a different tab? A tax preparer for 25 years and don’t know how to work with Excel? Huh.
4) So eventually we get going and these are the things he got wrong:
— He didn’t include the estimated tax payments made during the year (all of that info was in the Excel file, in the usual profit and loss and balance sheet formats.)
— When he included the estimated payments, he did it incorrectly.
— He told me I had to pay a penalty. When I asked him how he figured it, it magically disappeared. I asked him about it twice, and he avoided answering both times.
— He had numerous mistakes on the depreciation worksheets for the rental properties. I’m talking. 25+ mistakes. I did a recon for him in Excel, and we had to go back and forth THREE TIMES, each time with me doing a recon and each time it was wrong when it came back. He never did get it right in the end.
— He completely forgot to do depreciation on a new business asset, even though it was right there in the financial statements I provided. Thank God I noticed it.
During the process I had some questions which he never bothered to answer. He also kept pressuring me to finalize it so he could file. All in all, the process took a month — mainly of me checking his work and him correcting it. The software he uses spits out PDFs which aren’t searchable. Not his fault, but extremely annoying when you have returns in excess of 250 pages.
My final thoughts are:
— If he made all those mistakes which I had to correct, why would I pay him? Who is the tax preparer here; me or him?
— If I didn’t know a thing or two about tax returns from my years as a business owner and landlord, I’d be paying a lot more tax now (which is the main reason I am writing this Unilocal review: this could cost someone very real money).
— If he could get a return so wrong, how could I trust any information coming from him? So he’s useless to me as an advisor. In fact, from what he said in his emails I gleaned that he basically trusts the software to do the returns.
— The lack of attention to detail is shocking.
Don’t go here if you have anything but the simplest taxes, and even then I’d think twice. Sorry.

this is my 3^rd year coming here. in & out in 30minutes, friendly staff, Lupita helped me out, quick and painless. I used to go elsewhere and felt my return wasnt what it should be. Here I walk out with a smile everytime.

Brian and Lupita are the best! I’ve gone here five years because my son recommended them! I always stress for no reason! I get great advice and I always feel like all the weight is off my shoulders! And very reasonable! I never wait very long either! Love these people!

Awesomeness.. I come here every year! The team here is very friendly and professional. 5 stars for the team. I put 4 stars because of the location and size if the building. It’s a little drive and it’s a small place but worth it. That was just my snob side for Unilocal coming out. Last but not least. These people are honest and will work hard to get you the tax return you deserve !