I sent him everything Feb. 15. Since then, nothing unless I initiate contact. Every time I contact him, he's almost done and just about to send me everything.
I don't want to stiff him for the work he's already done, but at this point I feel like maybe I should just take care of it myself this year; ignore NT's UK income until next year, and find someone else to do it. But I don't know if or how to get out of this.
Only one other year did I leave my taxes until April. Even if I don't send them in right away, I like to know what I owe or get back.
I emailed him this morning to see when I could hear from him, or even if he could give me a rough estimate of what I owe him and the government. So far, nothing.
I guess I'll call him tomorrow first thing, and ask if I can terminate our relationship if he doesn't have them to me by close of business day. Is that too harsh?
Can I fire my tax guy?
April 4th, 2011 at 09:30 pm
April 4th, 2011 at 09:44 pm 1301953485
April 4th, 2011 at 10:53 pm 1301957600
Yes, he is swamped right now. But a simple "Hey CJ, your return will be done by Date X" is not too much to ask.
If you had sent your info in last week, I would say you were being unreasonable. But you sent it in Feb 15th. He's had plenty of time to get your returns prepared, or get back to you if there is something missing or some sort of problem.
If today were March 16th, I'd say give him a chance, he has only now finished his corporate returns. But we're 3 weeks past that.
He may be a great preparer who simply has more clients than he can handle. That's no reason for you to accept poor service.
April 4th, 2011 at 11:37 pm 1301960263
I guess I believe in communication!
As a tip - I would call and express my concerns. The squeaky wheel ALWAYS gets the grease. Start calling and asking about it every day - it will be done in no time. Either that or you should get a better explanation about what is taking so long. Express your concerns, but getting them done at the end of the business day is probably impossible.
It's April 4th - he may literally not have a break to respond until the evening. I'd give him a little more time.
Not saying you should stick with him if you are unhappy, but I do think you need to speak up more about your concerns, reasonably.
April 4th, 2011 at 11:41 pm 1301960506
If you had a W-2 and that was it, that would be another story. Then I'd probably say fire the dude - plenty of fish in the sea! In your case? Not so many fish?
April 4th, 2011 at 11:43 pm 1301960612
I don't think he's your guy for next year, unless you make an agreement with him at the beginning of tax season with what your expectations are for your return.
I do hope he returns your phone call as a simple courtesy, but he's got to be very busy!
April 5th, 2011 at 12:35 am 1301963721
MM, I know it sounds harsh. I kind of doubt I could do it like that. But let me explain a bit more. It's not that he gave me the expectation they would be done April 15.
I put them in the mail Feb. 15. On March 4, I realized I'd left one donation off the list, so I emailed him with that info and said "I hope my packet is making sense; let me know if you have any questions." No reply, so I assumed he didn't have any questions.
I emailed him on March 19 just to see if there had been any progress, and he wrote back in 2 hours:
"I have them back from processing and need to review them hope to have that done this weekend. I will call you when they are completed." Never heard anything that weekend, or the next. So I called him on April 1.
He sounded kind of guilty and apologized even though I was being nice. I said "it's fine, just wanted to make sure my taxes didn't get lost in the shuffle or anything." He had like 5 questions that took 3 phone calls to remember to ask me. If they had gone through processing, when was he going to ask me these questions so he could actually do my real taxes? And they were info-gathering questions; I really lucked out that I was able to find the information quickly. It could've been much more time-consuming.
At the end of the last conversation he definitely gave the impression that he was putting the finishing touches on them. He also expressed understanding (before I even mentioned it) that he was going to have to mail them to me; his office is too far away for me to reasonably go pick them up. He also said several times that it was very unusual for it to take him this long. So I was really expecting to at least get an update today.
When I emailed him this morning, I only asked for a timeline and a rough estimate of what he was going to charge me and/or what I might owe the government. No response so far.
So, several times, he raised my expectations that it was going to be done before April 15. If he'd laid that out: "Look, it may take me until April 15," at any time during this process, I would be WAY more understanding. But he has led me to believe that I'd have plenty of time to review his work, so I'm slightly freaking out. If I can't trust him to give me an accurate forecast and communicate regularly, it makes me question what else I might not be able to trust.
April 5th, 2011 at 01:20 am 1301966436
April 5th, 2011 at 01:26 am 1301966793
April 5th, 2011 at 03:23 am 1301973818
April 5th, 2011 at 05:24 am 1301981042
April 9th, 2011 at 11:00 pm 1302390048
Obviously, he took on more work than he could handle. I don't think that's being fair to you, his customer.