Optima Tax Relief LLC

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response 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.Once again I disagree because the internal revenue agent had not heard from anyone to discuss my tax case and for that reason a levy/garnishment was ordered. The topic of estimated tax was brought up and was not ignored, I told Optimal Tax that I did not have the money because of previous levy/garnishment that ended in July. Also I told the person at Optima Tax how can I pay when they just deducted a total of $3,500 from my account and a payment of $1,300 was paid to IRS. I did receive a phone call December 31 eventhough I told them I no longer needed their services. This company falsely advertised their services and I don't know how they received a high rating with the Revdex.com.
Regards,
[redacted]

SUMMARY - Optima Tax's management has been in contact with the client since receiving the complaint and we’re working towards a mutual resolution.    RESPONSE - Optima Tax’s management has been in communication with the client to address his concerns as outlined in the complaint....

Unfortunately Optima Tax was not aware of his concerns until after the complaint was filed. If the client had expressed his concerns regarding our services prior to make this complaint, Optima Tax is confident that it would have sufficiently dispelled any of the client’s concerns.     Optima Tax has conducted a thorough review of the client’s file and we are confident that the client was fully informed of our secondary fees to move forward with our Resolution phase. The client’s assigned Tax Associate is trained to present Optima Tax’s two Phase approach, with each phase requiring a separate retainer. In the happenstance that a Tax Associate did not fully disclose to a client during their initial consultation that a secondary fee would be required in order to move into our second phase, our Client Services Agreement clearly and unambiguously discloses Optima Tax’s two phase approach and the existence of a secondary fee for the Resolution Phase. Additionally, the client went through a voice recorded Verification Call that covers all legal disclosures including but not limited to the existence of a secondary fee in the event that the client decided to enroll in our Resolution Phase. Each disclosure requires a “yes” answer before moving forward. After reviewing the call, the client answered “yes” to each disclosure. At the conclusion of the Verification Call, the client rated Optima Tax a 9 out of 10, 10 being the most informed of the services being provided.   It’s unfortunate that the client feels as though his Tax Associate used scare tactics. It is our job to inform the client of any and all possibilities that may occur while having an outstanding balance with the IRS. This includes but not limited to wage garnishments, levies and bank seizures if the debt is not satisfied in a timely manner. However, at no point do our Tax Associates use coercion, duress, or undue influence when disclosing the potential outcomes that a client may encounter when the client has an outstanding tax liability.   The complexity of the client’s case ultimately dictates the cost associated with our Resolution Phase. Although we have no doubt that other firms may charge less, Optima Tax is confident in the quality of services that it provides and the peace of mind that our clients are given when they engage our services.. As the client pointed out, Optima Tax does have negative reviews. However, our numerous positive reviews outweigh our negative reviews and accurately depict the satisfaction of our many clients. Moreover, those positive reviews are from graduated Optima Client’s that were gracious enough to share their success stories and to show that Optima Tax will go the extra mile to achieve the best result possible.   At Optima Tax we strive to uphold the philosophy that "clients come first" and all of our representatives go through rigorous training to assure we abide by that philosophy. We take all complaints very seriously, and we do our best to turn them around when possible. Optima Tax believes it has addressed the client's concerns appropriately and will continue to reach out to the client until we come to a final resolve. Please do not hesitate to contact Optima Tax with any questions. Thank you.

I had very positive experience with Optima Tax Relief and was very happy with my outcome of my tax review.

In October of 2013 I hired Optima Tax to help me with a tax penalty debt that I could not afford to pay and that was holding me back from just being a normal tax paying citizen. I listed to advice from my ex-husband that got me in to trouble that could not get out of alone. I contacted Optima and was encouraged that they would be able to help me.
As I had a big problem of over $30,000 when I started.It took them quite a while to get the story straight and the IRS took a long time to contact them. Because I had spent countless hours/days on the phone with the IRS I was patient. My installment payments got me no where and I could no longer afford them. At some point over the next year my tax penalties were reduced about $8,000 and they where still working on the rest.
I had several different case workers and then at the end of last year 2015 I received a call from Ashley who wanted to submit an offer and compromise. I agreed to the terms and she sent of the paperwork. She said again it would take some time. During the next few months Ashley was moved to another department and I worked with someone else. In August of 2016 I received letters from the IRS that my tax debt was reduced to $0. Ashley called me to let me know that she was now a Closing Specialist and remembered submitting my application for compromise.
Thank you so much Optima Tax. My $30,000 tax penalty is now $0. The 2 tax liens I had are in the process of being lifted. I am so happy.
If you are working with or consider working with them, I highly recommend it!

I had problems with the IRS for many years and needed help and saw the ad's on TV for Optima Tax Relief and called them and set-up a payment plan and they helped me for a lot of years of taxes and I am so happy this is over and I can start my payments to the IRS and be done with this chapter of my life and move on. I am very happy with Optima Tax Relief. :)

I was delinquent with about 6 years of taxes plus late penalties for another 2 years. The IRS had started garnishing my pay as well as closing my bank accounts. I heard about Optima from a radio broadcast and thought to give them a try. They were patient, professional and understanding of my situation. I felt they were truly on my side and wanted to help me. The fact that they communicated with me every step of the way and was proactive to help me was an additional plus. I would not have made it out of this situation if it was not for Optima Tax Relief.

SUMMARY -
Optima...

Tax's management has made multiple attempts to contact
the client but the client has not responded
RESPONSE
-
Optima Tax’s management has made multiple attempts to contact
the client to discuss her claim as stated in the complaint. Due to the
vagueness of the complaint and the client’s unwillingness to respond to our
attempts at communication, we are unsure what the client’s issues are and how
we can resolve them.
In order
to clarify, Optima’s services are separated into a two phase approach,
Investigation and Resolution. During our Investigation, Optima gathered
extensive information which we presented to the client along with our proposed
Resolution services. Based off our review, Optima Tax
conducted a thorough investigation as outlined in the Client Services Agreement
and we presented the result to the client accordingly.
Additionally,
there are no indications that Optima Tax
did not represent the client as agreed upon. Moreover, during our Investigation
we do not complete any tax documents as that is included in our Resolution
phase. As we continue to review the case, it appears that the client may have
misunderstood  the purpose of the Investigation.
We are hopeful that we will establish communication to discuss her concerns and
more importantly, come to a mutual resolve regarding her unfortunate
dissatisfaction.  
At Optima Tax we strive to uphold the philosophy that
"clients come first" and all of our representatives go through rigorous training to assure we abide by that
philosophy. We take all complaints very seriously, and we do our best to turn
them around when possible. Optima Tax
will continue its efforts in resolving this unfortunate dispute until a
resolution is met. Thank you.

I would definitely recommend Optima Tax Relief as the program for you. They are very professional and very informative. They were accessible to all my needs and was able to avoid any collection actions. Optima Tax Relief was able to negotiate a resolution that gave me an affordable monthly payment plan.

SUMMARY -
Optima...

Tax's management has been in contact with the client and
we are working towards a mutual resolve.
RESPONSE
-
Optima Tax’s management has been in communication with the
client to address his concerns as outlined in the complaint. To clarify, Optima
Tax approaches each case in a two phase approach. Phase one being the
Investigation Phase and Phase two being the Resolution phase. Per the initial
intake call, the Client Services Agreement, and the voice recorded Verification
Call, the client confirmed and acknowledged their understanding that Optima Tax
does work in two phases and each phase requires a separate set fee.
Although
the client claims that Optima Tax did nothing regarding his case, this is an
inaccurate statement. Upon enrollment, Optima Tax immediately made contact with
the IRS and began the Investigation services the client contractually hired
Optima to conduct. Once we completed our Investigation the client was presented
with our findings as well as our formulated strategy to help resolve his case.
At no point is the client obligated to sign up for our Resolution services. In
fact, the client is more than welcome to close out their case with no
obligations and utilize the information we obtained to help resolve their
liability as a whole. It’s unfortunate that the client never informed our
management of his concerns prior to filing the complaint but, we do understand
that this is a stressful time and we will do what we can to provide our
assistance.
At Optima Tax we strive to uphold the philosophy that
"clients come first" and all of our representatives go through rigorous training to assure we abide by that
philosophy. We take all complaints very seriously, and we do our best to turn
them around when possible. Optima Tax
believes it has addressed the client's concerns appropriately and will continue
to reach out to the client until we come to a final resolve. Please do not
hesitate to contact Optima Tax with any questions. Thank you.

SUMMARY
-
w:st="on">Optima
Tax's management contacted the client to address her
concerns and we’ve come to a mutual resolution.
RESPONSE
-
Optima
Tax Relief’s (“OTR”) management was notified of the Client’s frustrations
through her complaint filed with the Revdex.com on or about October
20, 2015. Prior to and since that time, Optima Tax Relief’s management has made
valiant effort to address her complaint and reconcile. Fortunately, OTR is
pleased to report that we have come to a mutually satisfactory agreement that
addresses all the client’s frustrations.  
We
have always upheld our philosophy that “clients come first,” and we do our best
to respectfully clarify our position to the Client, however, we understand that
we are not able to keep all of our clients satisfied.  As such, although we believe we have properly
fulfilled our obligations to the client, we have decided that it is best to
part ways and have consequently offered a resolution that fully meets Client’s
demand, as an attempt to settle this dispute once and for all. We are pleased
that the Client has accepted this resolution and it addresses her frustration.   
Once
again, at Optima Tax, we strive to uphold the philosophy that "clients
come first" and all of our representatives go through rigorous training to
assure we abide by that philosophy. We take all complaints very seriously, and
we do our best to turn them around when possible. Optima Tax considers this
matter closed as we have come to a satisfactory agreement with the client. We
welcome any additional correspondence if we can be of further assistance.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response 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.I am in the process of a resolution with the company. Although I am still not satisfied, and I do believe that I was scammed. I would like to advise everyone that this company is a fraud.
Regards,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted]. Since the business made no response through Revdex.com; rather merely posted a rebuttal, there is no proposed action to resolve our complaint. Furthermore we are still waiting.  After numerous efforts to arrange a telephone call with the business in the complaint, their representative finally contacted us on 9/20.  The call was extremely acrimonious.  Eventually, I was asked what would settle the complaint. I stated we would settle the complaint for $7,500.00.  She promptly stated they would never go for that.  I was told I would hear back from her.  There has been no further contact other than the rebuttal posted on the Revdex.com website.  Furthermore I was threatened that if I escalated my complaint further - NOTHING would be offered to settle our complaint.When we asked for an accounting of time and materials, we were told there were no attorney involved; that is not how they operate. Imagine my surprise. More evidence of false advertising and leading us to believe we had obtained "representation" on our behalf with the IRS. After all, the first action we need to comply with was to authorize legal representation by giving the company's legal representatives POA to communicate on our behalf with the IRS.  They were prompt to forward us a copy of said POA executed by 5 counselors, thereby continuing the ruse that we would, in fact, be immediately represented in our then "simple" issue with the IRS (we had not made payment of penalty and interest for a late filing in 2013).  Each time additional notices from the IRS with legal complications were received, we contacted the business and requested to speak to the legal representative assigned to our case.  Each time the case worker (gate keeper) said that we had to conduct all our communication through the case worker. Thus we were at about the half point in our relationship with the company when we began to smell a rat.  I repeat, the final straw was not when the liens were filed on our property; but when I contacted the company and urgently requested intervention with an IRS threat to garnish our social security payments. At that time we were, as the company/case worker repeatedly referred,  in "full compliance" with the IRS - all returns filed.  Despite the urgency of our situation, NOTHING WAS DONE by the company. The end result being that both our social security payments are now garnished for the maximum allowance of 15% each.  I repeat, this was the final straw. Still at this time, if the company had achieved a resolution with the IRS on our behalf - NO SOLUTION WAS EVER PRESENTED TO US - NEVER WERE WE TOLD the company had achieved a resolution with the IRS.  If there was such a resolution, let them present said resolution for the record along with the dated correspondence when resolution was transmitted to us. AGAIN, I state we paid the company just under $10,000 for nothing and within 6 months ended up in a more critical position with the IRS than when we engaged the company in Oct 2015 to resolve a fairly simple situation. We are still waiting for their reply to our answer as to what it would take to settle the case.Regards,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response 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.Offer was 500.
As stated before I was told it would be 1000. For the totall service.
Then they came back and said it would be another 1000.
At this point I was mad and they said calm down were going to save you a whole lot more then that so at That point I did pay the extra fee. 
This is what I'm wanting back.
Regards,
[redacted]

SUMMARY -
Optima...

Tax's management contacted the client to address his
concerns and the client is satisfied with the outcome.  
 
RESPONSE
-
Optima Tax’s management has made contact with the client to
address his concerns as outlined in the complaint. As the client indicated in his
complaint, he came to Optima Tax
with a wage garnishment already instituted by the IRS. As part of the
Investigation services, Optima Tax
was to engage the IRS and thoroughly investigate his case while attempting to
negotiate the release of the clients wage garnishment. Optima Tax diligently
performed this duty and typically we are highly successful in releasing wage
garnishments. Unfortunately however, the IRS would not approve the release of
the garnishment, despite our best efforts, due to exigent circumstances in the
client’s case. Furthermore, the IRS agent assigned to the client’s case proved
to be non-responsive despite our many calls and leaving multiple messages. This
directly affected our ability to provide the client with any type of update
related to his liability. After we were able to make contact with the IRS
agent, they provided us with the conditions to release the garnishment, to
which Optima Tax fully informed the client. After informing the client of our
efforts, he understands that a great amount of time and energy went into his
case. More so, he understands that Optima does not trap its clients into our
services, and that we could not provide a thorough update prior to the 15 day
refund policy due to the non-responsive IRS agent. More importantly, we were
able to come to a mutual agreement that is satisfactory to all parties.
 
At Optima
Tax we strive to uphold the philosophy that "clients come first" and
all of our representatives go through rigorous training to assure we abide by
that philosophy. We take all complaints very seriously, and we do our best to
turn them around when possible. Optima Tax believes it has addressed the
client's concerns appropriately and considers the matter closed. Please do
not hesitate to contact Optima Tax with any questions. Thank you.

SUMMARY -
Optima...

Tax's management has attempted to contact the client to
discuss their complaint. We have an appointment set for Thursday and we believe
we will be able to address all of the client’s concerns.
 
RESPONSE
-
Optima Tax’s management has attempted to contact the client to
discuss their concerns as outlined in the complaint. Unfortunately we have not
been able to connect with the client to address the allegations in the
complaint. We do have an appointment scheduled for Thursday July 30th
and we are confident that we can satisfy the clients concerns. The client
claims that Optima Tax prey’s on
individuals that are in a desperate situation. Optima Tax takes such
allegations very seriously because we strive to uphold our philosophy that
“clients come first”. The client contacted Optima Tax
in order to get help dealing with the IRS because they have an outstanding tax liability.
We educated the client on our two Phase approach and the client ultimately
signed up with Optima. The client was fully aware that there would be an
additional retainer for Phase two after we completed a thorough investigation.
After reviewing her file we believe that the client’s complaint is in regards
to affordability of our services and not a servicing issue. Our team of Tax
Associates do not provide false hope in order to obtain our clients business.
We are extremely upfront about the services we’ll provide and it’s the client’s
choice of whether to engage our services. In this case, the client decided to
move forward and Optima Tax
performed a thorough Investigation as described in our Client Servicing
Agreement. Once we speak with the client about her concerns we are confident
that a mutual resolution will be met.
 
At Optima Tax we strive to uphold the philosophy that
"clients come first" and all of our representatives go through rigorous training to assure we abide by that
philosophy. We take all complaints very seriously, and we do our best to turn
them around when possible. Optima Tax
believes it will be able to address the client's concerns once we communicate
with them and therefore we consider the matter closed. Please do
not hesitate to contact Optima Tax with any questions. Thank you.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response 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.
 I asked for a refund so why are they refusing to give it to me.  They have a money back guarantee by are refusing to honor it.  There is nothing to discuss....I just want my money back as I requested due to Optima Tax not being able to honor their promise.  I have emails from Optima Tax where they clear stated they could not help me and some would contact me about a refund.  Then they waited several days to contact me only to say they were now outside of the money back period but this was due to their delay and was done deliberately.  This matter can be resolved by simply giving me back my money.  That is all I want.
Regards,
[redacted]

SUMMARY -
Optima Tax's management had made
contact with the client upon receiving their Revdex.com...

complaint.
Optima Tax educated the client as to what our strategy was regarding their 2011
tax returns and he confirmed that he is satisfied with the outcome.
 
RESPONSE -
Optima Tax’s management reached out
to the client to address their concerns as outlined in the complaint. When
filing a tax return there are many factors that Optima Tax’s tax preparation
team takes into consideration when it comes to what it believes as certain
allowable write-offs. Optima Tax’s strategy and the reason why the client’s
returns were filed without including his business expenses were with the
intention to hopefully prevent any potential audits in the future for the
client. Although the client should have the final say, Optima Tax deemed it to
be in the best interest of the client’s to not include his business expenses
based on the Company’s interpretation of the IRS tax laws. Once we educated the
client on our strategy we came to a final conclusion regarding his refund
request and the client is satisfied with the end result.
 
At Optima Tax we strive to uphold
the philosophy that "clients come first" and all of our representatives go through rigorous
training to assure we abide by that philosophy. We take all complaints very seriously, and we do
our best to turn them around when possible. Optima Tax believes it has addressed the
client's concerns appropriately and considers the matter closed. Please do not hesitate to contact
Optima Tax with any questions. Thank you.

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.
Regards,
[redacted]

SUMMARY -
Optima Tax's management immediately
reached out to the clients to discuss their concerns outlined in the complaint.
Although the concerns were addressed, the clients decided to move in a
different direction to resolve their tax debt
 
RESPONSE -
Optima Tax’s management reached out
to the clients to address their concerns as outlined in the complaint. Upon
further communication with the clients they indicated they understand our
strategy to resolve their case; however, ultimately they feel it would be in
their best interest to resolve their liability on their own. We believe all
questions and concerns have been addressed and the clients confirmed they were
satisfied with the outcome.
At Optima Tax we strive to uphold
the philosophy that "clients come first" and all of our representatives
go through rigorous training to assure we abide by that philosophy. We take all
complaints very seriously, and we do our best to turn them around when
possible. Optima Tax believes it has addressed the client's concerns
appropriately and considers the matter closed.
Please do not hesitate to contact
Optima Tax with any questions. Thank you.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.
Regards,
[redacted]