John Kristianson EA & Associates

John obviously cared about me and my audit. He seemed to take specific pride in helping me make sure that everything would not only be OK but that he would see it through. Thanks John for making an extremely stressful situation go smooth and easy!

We hired John to do our taxes in the tax years of 2011 and 2012. In 2012 our CA state taxes increased by 3X. Despite multiple attempts to inquire as to why this was, we literally never got an answer, so we went with another firm in the 2013 tax year. Fast forward to July 16^th 2014 and we got a letter from the IRS saying that we owed $ 600 (plus interest) for the 2012 tax year (having to do with our dependent childcare form 2441).
The very day we received the letter from the IRS we scanned it in and e-​mailed John’s office for help. We heard nothing back for about 9 days, so we inquired via e-​mail if anyone had seen our inquiry and finally got a reply from an associate (after e-​mailing and leaving messages for everyone in the office) on July 25^th. The final response: «As I said, he is out of town, but checks his email periodically and will respond when he does. I wish I could be more help, but John will get in touch with you soon.»
A few more days passed. I inquired again on July 30^th, as we had to respond by August 13^th, and I didn’t know what would be involved with fixing this. I received this reply from John: «I received your email. As Deonna told you, I am out of the office and have been for the past two weeks. I am traveling on business and have numerous meetings that I have been involved in. And between the meetings, I have been traveling. I am back in the office on August 6. I will look at the file and documents when I get back to the office.»
I replied that I was looking forward to hearing back from him on August 6^th. Fast forward to August 8^th (a Friday) and we had STILL not heard back from John. I tried calling him but his voicemail was full so I sent another e-​mail. That evening I received the following correspondence: «I am aware of your situation and my commitments. Why don’t you google „Lynn Kristianson“ and let me know what you find.» to which I replied: «I don’t need to google anything actually. If you are having family matters that you are dealing with then why not just say that instead of stating that you’re flying around the country for business meetings? A little honesty goes a long way.»
Under a time crunch, my husband and I went ahead and researched on our own what we needed to do. Thank goodness we did. Form 2441 was the form in question and was filled out incorrectly by John. The IRS noted this discrepancy, which was why they sent the letter to begin with. My husband and I, using the 2012 final tax forms we had on file, filled out the form correctly and discovered that the $ 600 tax credit was correct (in other words we did NOT owe the money), the form was just filled out wrong (part III needed to be filled out and wasn’t). So, we went ahead and filled out the form correctly and faxed in the necessary forms and information to the IRS today, August 10^th.
This afternoon, we received a final correspondence from John: «I checked the file for 2012 and it appears that I missed the child care credit from [your husbands] job at [company]. So the amount that the IRS says that you owe, is correct. I am sorry that I missed that. But stuff happens. Anyway, this should give you time to respond to the IRS.»
No indication as to what he would be doing to help us or what monetary liability he claimed for this mistake. NEVER MIND that he was WRONG and we did NOT owe the monies. We can only assume that he gave us wrong information out of spite. God forbid that we inquire over the course of weeks for help on tax forms HE filled out. We paid him nearly $ 300 for the privilege of sitting in his office for nearly 3 hours while he did our taxes that year and he was a sum total of ZERO help when we had a problem with the IRS.
The bottom line? When a problem with the IRS came up, he was 100% unprofessional and unhelpful in every way possible. He has no «out of office» reply on e-​mail or voicemail when he is not in the office and none of his staff knows where he is, when he will be back, OR is able to help you in any way if you have a problem. I would highly recommend that you FIND SOMEONE ELSE to do your taxes and to NOT waste your time and money with him or his «firm».
EDIT (09÷26÷14): We got our letter from the IRS today confirming we don’t owe any money. Thanks again John for being a horrible, unethical accountant.

John is the best, he has helped me through an audit, and several other complicated tax situations. Highly recommended.