Hampden Hills Tax Service, Inc.

I wanted to write a review on this company. I prepared my own return for years and got audited by IRS. I went in to see them. One of the accountants, Phillip Gervase, dealt with me. He found that I did make several mistakes on my returns and amended my returns for 3 years. I owed much less than IRS said because I not only failed to know what to report that was taxable but failed to take certain deductions that my program never told me about. The fee was more than reasonable, in fact I was surprised. I was so impressed he will be my tax man from now on. Very professional.

Review: Contacted business 4/09/15 to inquire when taxes would be completed. Was told nothing more was required of me to complete tax preparation. Business called me one day before tax deadline (4/14/15) and informed me that an extension would have to be filed because they were in need of more documentation. Business lied about informing me and placed blame when they, in fact, did not get their own work done. Business did not apply deductions and expenses, provided on 3/04/15, which resulted in an inaccurate tax liability. Business did not apply correct tax bracket due to lack of knowledge. Business did NOT follow my instructions to apply tax liability to each beneficiary as opposed to filing under the Trust. When asked why I had not been informed before one day prior to deadline, I was told that they are very busy and do not have the time to contact all their clients. [redacted] constantly interrupted me when I was trying to inform him of California tax laws that apply to liquidation of an estate within the first year of death. Different tax brackets apply. He was argumentative and rude. I fired him the next morning and will be taking my business elsewhere. I would not recommend this business to anyone! Additionally, when I went to business to collect my paperwork back, I was told I could not have it unless I paid them $100.00 for services provided. Services were not rendered.

Business

Response:

I am responding to your letter dated 04/16/2015 for applicant # [redacted]. The applicant engaged our serviceslast year to prepare a Trust return. She came back in this year for an appointment with me on 03/04/2015. Shewas missing most of the information needed to complete Trust return accurately. Therefore, the Trust returnpreparation was not finalized pending the additional information.The client said she would get the information and get back with us. She brought in some of the neededinformation, but told us that her broker was going to send information directly as well. I received an email fromher broker at 8:09 pm on 03/23/2015. That email stated that this was some, not all, of the information, but thescanner was not working. She wanted our fax number in order to fax us the information, which we provided toher broker on 03/24/2015. We did not get the final information from the broker until 5:16 pm on April 14,2015. Incidentally, this was after we called the client to inform them an extension would be needed.The client did call our office on 04/09/2015 and spoke to our secretary. The secretary asked me about the returnand I told her we were still missing information. The client told me that information was not passed to her. Wedid not hear anything further from the client until we called her on 04/15/2015.I had our secretary call the client on 04/15/2015 to tell her we would have to file an extension. The secretarytold me she was extremely upset and beyond rude. I tried calling her back and she did not answer. The clientcalled back to our office later that day when our night secretary was working and was again extremely rude.The secretary passed a message on to me to call the client. I called the client and she was extremely upset andrude. I informed her of what information was still missing. I received the missing information from her brokerat 5:16 pm on 04/14/2015.To further assist the client, I worked out a rough estimate for an extension payment for state and federal to makesure filing an extension would not harm them. I stayed beyond our normal business hours to figure thisinformation for her. I told her that this was just an estimate and that I was still missing information needed togive a more precise tax figure, which the client did not get me until 04/15/2015. After all of this work, theclient reminded me about passing the taxes to the beneficiaries. I then told her I would file an extension and nopayment would be needed.She wanted to know why we didn't call her on what was missing, As I told her on the phone, and in hertermination of services letter from us, we call all of our clients that are pending information periodically, as timeallows. I did talk to her in March and she said her broker would be sending us the information. Many of ourclients bring information in a piece by piece fashion. In order to reduce the possibility of errors, we wait until all of the information is in before beginning a tax return.On 04/15/2015 she called me again. She was so rude I considered telling her to come get her stuff right then,but I did not.. I ended the call by telling her that I was not going to discuss anything else with her at that time, Ifiled an extension and I would not talk to her again until after 04/15/2015. Obviously, the 15th is the busiest dayof the year for us. She called back about 10 minutes after I got off the phone with her and said she was going tocome down and get her tax information.We did provide this client with a termination of services letter and we will not do any services for her or herTrust again. I am not going to tolerate clients cursing at me, yelling at me or my staff, and behaving in anunprofessional manor like she did.When the client came in to pick up her information, we did charge her a fee of $100.00, which was for theoriginal appointment, time spent on her return on 04/14/2015, and the time spent providing information over thephone. Once she paid us, I brought her information out to her and the client left the office cursing at me. Wesimply do not tolerate this kind of behavior from clients and there was no excuse for her completelyunprofessional behavior.Sincerely,[redacted] Hampden Hills Tax Service Inc.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

The business is lying. He states he followed procedures that he did not. He stated he informed me and did not. It was a complete surprise that an extension had to be filed. I called specifically to follow up on what, if anything, was still needed. I was told nothing was needed. He told me he was too busy to call all his clients. He had ample time to complete a return for which I provided all documents requested. I did not 'yell and scream' or curse at him or anyone.I came and got my paperwork that I originally had provided and terminated his services.

Review: After being a customer with this business for 9 years we will not be returning to have our taxes done by them. They do not itemize a receipt for you letting you know how much you are paying for the forms they have to file. Also this year we filed differently we did an electronic Refund Product which was supposed to be explained to us before we signed it because it involved many fees that are taken out of your refund additional to the tax service fees. If we would have had this explained to us we would have chose a different form of refund. To sum it up we were told a fee of 299.00 to have our taxes filed. When we returned to sign our check we had to pay a additional 11.95,34.95,24.00 coming out for processing fees. We have always believed to keep business local to help support business in your home town but after this experience we will not and will be spreading the word not to use them. Just feel we got ripped off this time and many other times as well.Desired Settlement: I feel as a customer that this business should have to provide a itemized receipt showing the breakdown cost of how much they charge for the forms that they are preparing for you.

Business

Response:

This letter is in response to a letter the Revdex.com we received. It is our policy to provide our clients with a totalamount due for tax preparation services. Sometimes our returning clients want to know why the tax prep pricehas changed from one year to the next and we explain to them the forms or services that caused the change. Inthe past, we did have an option to print an itemized receipt and a few times Mrs. [redacted] was given one. Whenour software was upgraded, that option was no longer available to us. We have had the discussion in previousyears about the itemized receipts, which has upset them every time they haven't gotten one.The [redacted]'s tax prep cost was higher for 2014 due to the additional forms that were used to complete thereturn. I personally informed them of the cost, as well as their refunds, before finalizing their taxes. I offeredthem the option of using our bank product which gives them the option of having our fees deducted from theirrefund. They were very interested in this option, so I went on to explain that there were additional fees that thebank charges them for this service. After this discussion, they agreed to use this service. The only concern theyexpressed to me is that they wanted an itemized receipt of the fees charged. I explained that I could not providethis to them this year due to our software limitations. They both signed three forms for the bank product theyagreed to, including the bank application. Both of their signatures are directly underneath each of the threeprices we passed on to them, from the bank, for this service.When they came into our office on 04/09/2015 to pick up their refund, she was highly upset and yelling. Shewas upset that we did not give her an itemized receipt and that she had to pay the additional fees for the bankproduct that they both had agreed to using just a short time before. I spoke to both of them and explained that Ihad personally told her about the fees associated with this service and that furthermore, she had also signed thebank application. I showed her the scanned bank forms on our computer that had her signature. She did notbelieve that the signature was truly hers and she accused us of making up it up. Therefore, I told her that Iwould pull the original forms so that she could see we did not make up anything. Mrs. [redacted] stormed out ofour office before I could show her the original forms. Her husband did stay and I showed him the applicationthat they both signed and gave him a copy of it. Again, he and I discussed the reason an itemized receipt couldnot be printed this year and further went over the fees we charged them for their tax preparation. He againexpressed his desire for an itemized receipt.I am sorry that the [redacted]'s feel that they were ripped off this year. It is not our intention to mislead any of ourclients. We are always very forth coming about our fees, products and services.Sincerely, [redacted]Hampden Hills Tax Service, Inc,