Mr. Sidney was helpful and rather understanding when he was helping me prepare my taxes. I had to do two returns for two states as I was new to the area and he suggested I also do an amended return for 2018 due to misclassification of my status as an employee that made me pay self-employment taxes.
However, there are a number of items that frustrated me when he was preparing my return and one that recently came up.
Mr. Sidney dealt with a complicated situation I was in, but I dock 2 Stars because:
(1) There was no reassurance that he would file by the deadline even in the midst of COVID ( I had to email him and leave voicemails to get him to respond to my concerns).
(2) He failed to attach a statement to my amended 2018 form and emailed me later after I had mailed the forms off. I now have to wait for the the IRS to not only finish processing the return but also send out a notice that they need the form.
(3) He was using ONLY paper returns. This itself is not a major problem but it is a headache because I only have one copy from him and IRS takes forever to process them. Especially during COVID. My 2018 amended return even with COVID is still processing.
(4) Virginia's Tax Department also requested another copy of my 2020 information. Why am I sending a paper form only to have to send another copy??? This may not be his fault as it was a multi state return but if it was digital I don't think this would be as much of an issue.
(5) A recent development that I am not sure if is connected to my amended report. But I received notice from the IRS that I owe fees/penalties related to healthcare obligation for 2018. I was confused as according to return he prepared it was already calculated in and I was exempted in the original return. The fact I have to fight this in 2021 and for someone else's work is rather annoying and the impetus for why I needed to review now.
Do I recommend him? I would not enlist his help in filing taxes. I paid money for a service and I was unhappy. At the very minimum I would prefer if he did them digitally and I wish he was more forthcoming in providing bare minimum when I would be expecting updates. read more