Average Cost for Tax Prep

babyzilla

I'm confused and lost AF right now and could use some feedback. Straight to the point: my tax lady just invoiced me $950 to file our taxes...this is nuts and I'm livid.

In my early 20s I would file with my parents. Mid 20s I filed myself using Turbotax. When I got married last year, I decided to use a CPA because I didn't want to mess anything up. Our (wife and I) financial portfolio is very straight forward...I'll leave it at that, trust me. Honestly, I've never heard of anyone paying over $300 for preparing taxes and we're just average middle-class citizens. Am I missing something? I emailed her back saying she must have made a mistake. This is my first time using her and definitely last. I even asked her, on average, how much it would be to file our taxes. She told us anywhere between $150 to thousands depending on assets and whatnot. Trust me, I'm no Warren Buffet. I provided her all our information, in an extremely organized manner, early this year way before the global pandemic and she just got back to me tonight saying our taxes are done and invoiced us the $950. I refuse to pay this, but I'm willing to amicably resolve this with her. Please help and/or provide suggestions. Can I back out of this and re-prepare my taxes with someone else??

THANK YOU.

Zoren 370

That is a fraud and absurd! Yes you can back
Out if she has not filed your tax yet to the IRS. Ive been using my accountant to file my W2 filed jointly with my wife and pay only $100 every year.

Do you have a business that she/he had to do book keeping for the whole year?
How many jobs or W2 do you have?

I do have 4 W2 meaning I work 4 jobs with different hospitals and she my accountant only charge $100.

Is your account office is in New York or in Somewhere in Manhattan?
You can demand an explanation why it you where invoiced that much.

As you have said your is just straight forward. Did you have a refund from your tax?

You got a scammer for an accountant!

babyzilla

I've had one job and some benefits through my job like stocks and what not since I graduated school...pretty average. I do not have a business. My wife was from PA, but she moved to MD last year. She worked one job and did a contract job through her same job for a couple months. She currently has one job right now. That's 3 W2s right there. The only complexity I can think of is that we got married mid year last year, so I'm not sure how exactly that works in terms of prepping files, but I still think $950 is absurd. I asked her for a breakdown. She is in MD as well. We got a very small refund. I'm starting to realize she is a scam. Her Google review is solid, but her Yelp (which I did not see until now) are terrible. There were some people people who said she deleted their bad reviews.

JARblue

That seems outrageous to me. And my ex was a CPA and got certified with the IRS as a paid tax preparer for a side business where she filed taxes for personal friends and acquaintances. I know what goes into them even when a business is involved - it's not rocket science. Typically she charged $75-150 for a tax return and spent maybe an hour or two on the entire process.

Currently, my accountant bills $300 for my taxes, although they never charge me. I perform basic IT services for them in exchange.

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babyzilla

I can't recall 100%, but I vaguely remember signing something with her basically saying we will pay her what she charges at the end of her services. Or maybe I just made that up in my head. Either way, I definitely ****** up, but I think it's partly because I was expecting to pay up to $300...not $950. That being said, if I really did sign something like that, she could technically charge me $10k - what's to stop her? There's has to be some sort of reasonable amount for this. I really rather settle with her and pay no more than $500 to get out of this mess with her...that's best case. I rather not take legal action because that would probably just end up financially worse for me. Is there any other way to get out of this?

Rusty

With 6 different incomes between me and wifey, plus we itemize. Our CPA charges us roughly $170.00 a year. Depends if we throw something different at her year to year.

That $950.00 would get someone shot. How you get out of it. I don't know since they have all of your paperwork.

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503.Zed

Here's my 2 cents. I work at an accounting firm where the bulk (~95%) of our revenue is tax work. Is $950 outrageous for a return with the items you labeled? Absolutely. I don't make or quote the prices here, but if something like yours came across my desk I would imagine $250-300 max (at least here locally). Sure some places are a bit cheaper like Rusty said, but that's location based and how much the accountant actually wants to make. Have you had many back forth emails, phone calls, or correspondents with her? Could be a contributing factor as that's how some of our clients billings are higher. When she does send you an invoice it should have a breakdown at least of what forms are being filed, and if any special or meticulous work there should be a further breakdown.

Regardless you're definitely being bent over.

503.Zed

For our clients if they're unhappy and want to go somewhere else, no problem we'll hand you back all your original documents no questions asked and cordially. OP did you prepay anything at all and is the actual return finished? What stage is the return or process currently at.

babyzilla

Thanks to all of you for the affirmation and letting me know I'm not crazy. So after a lot of back and forth and basically a burned bridge, I paid her $500 because that's the most I was willing to pay even though I was expecting $300 at the most. She obviously did not like that. There are a couple things to note here. One, I did sign a legally binding contract that basically said we owe her whatever she charges (again, this was stupid of me in retrospect, but I never thought it would be this bad). Two, she explained how she had to do all these extra steps for us. My issue with this is some of you who responded clearly have a lot more to deal with and your filing costs seems completely reasonable, if not, low in some cases, so there's just no excuse for the $950 - I don't care what she says about that. Three, I could be wrong, but I couldn't walk away because she did complete her services and was ready to file. If I walked away that would have probably made matters worse and she has all our information.
All things considered, we are moving on with life and definitely with a different CPA. However, I am worried she may try to mess with our filing to get back at us and I would never know unfortunately. She emailed me "one final time" with all the reasons why it was $950 again and how she was rightful to charge that much and ended with "I will write off $450, the balance of your invoice, as a bad debt." I'm assuming this is for her internal bookkeeping for her business and not a collection agency on our behalf...can anyone confirm?

ARE THERE ANY TRUSTWORTHY CPAs IN THE PA/DMV AREA ON THIS FORUM??? Would be nice to know for the next go-around!

503.Zed

She sounds like a piece of work. If she was willing to go down the price she knew she was overcharging. Our firm doesn't haggle on price because we know exactly how much it should cost and how much it will be everywhere else. As for the letter you sign, did it say you owed her the full amount no matter what? We have our clients sign an engagement letter which goes over the generalities of how all info you give to us is correct to your knowledge, wait time, we don't file until we have payment and signatures needed, etc.

Honestly my bet is she had something similar that required payment to file. We've had clients we prepare a return for where the invoice is anywhere from $500-$1000 and end up not liking the return and go somewhere else. It is what it is, sometimes you can't control that bit. From my understanding she shouldn't be able to hold your documents "hostage" but who knows, at least its settled. What I would do is have ask if she can send the proof of e-filing. There's two main software's tax firms use. Once a return is e-filed, it may take a day or so to be accepted by both the federal and state government. We don't send this to every client as it'd be a waste of time and we only contact them if there's an issue. If someone requests it, sure I'll send it to them.

Normally you'd be able to check the status of your return on the IRS website but it's an over trafficked mess right now that even if you enter all your correct info (SSN, refund amounts submitted, etc.) it will say they don't see you in their software. Tons of our clients have had this issue and its just the nature of COVID's effect on the IRS also. Best of luck to you and at least she's out of your hair now!

MZ DAIZY

Ummm... yea... did you at least get a reach around? Seriously, I’ve never paid more than $150 from my CPA, and that’s with filing jointly, self employed, with 3 IRA’s, Stock holdings, capital gains and dependents.

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MZ DAIZY

Hey, I think the $500 you paid was more than reasonable. I respect you for taking the high road even though you didn’t have too.

As far as “a bad debt”, don’t worry about it, there is nothing she can do once she accepts your payment. Collection agency’s have no legal authority until they go to court and get a judgment. That will never happen as it will cost more for filing and legal fees. Also, a CPA is not going report you to a credit agency for basically the same reasons. The only thing she COULD have done was file a “theft of services” complaint, but that ship sailed when she took your payment.

I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this, as you did everything you should have. Actually, you even went overboard, but at least you won’t lose any sleep over it.

PS: I hope she got you a decent refund?

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JARblue

Tell her that she is incompetent at her job if it really took her that much time to do your return. A competent CPA would have done it for less than half the amount she charged you. Fùck that bitch.



I'd be interested to see her reasons excuses why she charged so much.

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babyzilla

Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. As for the the letter we signed, I don't have a copy (another red flag and, again, my fault). I can't remember exactly what it said other than what I had mentioned in my OP. I really do hope she's out of our hair now...only time will tell. Her last email to us also said she would no longer be communicating with us, so yeah...

babyzilla

Thanks, man - appreciate it. $101...truly some BS.