Diane expertly helped me solve my problem. Her frank and simple advice helped me to potentially avoid big trouble down the road. It's such a relief to have someone to turn to. She was responsive and had a helpful system where I was able to book a time to consult. read more

Highly competent, very kind, and as much of a pleasure to work with as is possible when dealing with one's taxes. I had great experiences with her back when I lived in Somerville. She totally understands the lives of freelancers and artists and is very good about making sure you understand everything she is doing (and very patient and kind with questions and clarifications). read more

I was referred to Diane from a close childhood friend who has used Diane in the past, so this was a positive referral and I went in with high expectations. My SO and I decided to use a CPA for our tax prep this year because we purchased a home together in 2013, and are not married. We didn't want to make any missteps, however more specifically short ourselves any refund amount that isn't appropriate. Diane has a 24/7 answering service, however Diane is MUCH better communicated with via email. I say this only because I left messages with the answering service, but only was able to get in touch with her via email to coordinate our first appointment together. With that in mind she was great on the phone and was quick to answer my questions. We met with Diane on her very flexible schedule, and with both of us working full time, her availability was really helpful. We sat down with all of the documents we needed (she has a very helpful checklist located on her website) Diane took her time to explain everything to us, answered all our questions, and was great to work. She was knowledgeable and was confident in her work. Great to know a good resource in our neighborhood! Thanks again Diane! read more

Diane is a true professional with impeccable customer service. I am a young professional who just doesn't understand how to do my taxes and after failing at Turbo Tax I reached out to Diane to do them. When I showed up with all my documents in hand she sat me down, talked me through what I need to do in Turbo Tax, explained to me why filing would be simple and told me she couldn't take my money knowing how easy filling out my return would be. I really appreciated her feedback and honesty and will definitely go back to her when the time comes for me to have a more complicated return. read more

Diane prepared my tax return for me this year and I must say that she was very helpful as well as being cool and friendly. Diane is an Enrolled Agent (EA), which means she is a tax professional who has passed an IRS test covering all aspects of taxation, plus passed an IRS background check. Prior to our meeting, Diane and I spoke about my specific tax preparation needs and she outlined exactly what I should bring to our meeting. I explained to her that I am a freelance writer and editor and wanted to see what type of home office expenses I could deduct. Diane was very knowledgeable about these matters and explained them to me thoroughly. Plus I was able to get an appointment with her quickly that worked with my schedule. Her office is conveniently located in Davis Square and she maintains office hours in the evening to accommodate us working stiffs. Diane charges between $100-$300 for her services, depending on the complexity of the tax return. My personal return was on the lower end of this spectrum and took about 20 minutes to finish. The rest of my time there was spent chatting with Diane about kids and life and the freelance lifestyle. I would highly recommend Diane opposed to a place like HR Block or the Tax Man based on her experience alone. It's also a good idea to support your local business owners and keep the Davis Sq. area that tight-knit community that we love so much. read more

As someone who's never used an accountant before, I was really nervous about this going in, especially as my tax problem basically stemmed from the fact that I had waited to file for so long that I could no longer do it online. But Diane was incredibly sweet and generous with her time, showed me that my problem was easily fixed, and sent me away with a huge weight off my shoulders. A word to the wise, though-- if you want information and prompt replies, contact her via email, NOT phone. Her answering service is horrible-- one girl I spoke with was very sweet but could give me absolutely no information, and (I found out later) never gave Diane my message. The second girl I spoke with was rudely intolerant of my questions, and just as ignorant as the first girl. They don't know anything about her practices, only maintain her schedule and take messages, so if you want to be sure your queries will reach her (and actually want answers), email is definitely the way to go. I'm still giving Diane five stars, though, because my experiences with her face-to-face were stellar. Definitely recommend her, especially if you're new to using an accountant. Thanks Diane for your help! read more

Diane is one of my favorite people in the world- I went to her in last February when I was first starting up my business, and she spent several hours with me, figuring out what I needed to be doing, how I should be keeping track of everything, letting me know what i needed to keep track of- generally giving me a class on business 101. At the end of that seesion, I asked what i owed her, and she said, and I quite "well, are you gonna bring me your taxes next year?" and I said yes, and she said that would be fine, then. She just did my taxes ( in her always low key, always friendly manner) and charged me less than my boyfriend paid to have his done elsewhere- without getting a class included. In short, I can't thank her enough- she's just plain awesome. read more

I scheduled an appointment 3 weeks in advance for Diane to help with my taxes. 24 hours prior to the set time I receive a 1 subject line email asking "Can you reschedule your appointment tomorrow?" I immediately emailed back stating that it is very difficult for me to get the time off of work that I have already allotted, and that I would like to keep the appointment slot. I also wrote that I could meet at a different time that day if it fit better for her. I then called her "answering service" throughout the day 4 different times letting them know the same information, and just to please confirm if I should still show up for the slot or not. I never heard back. I showed up to the appointment and the door was locked. Again, no word from the service or from Diane. Later that day, I finally received a 1 line email from Diane stating, "Sorry had to cancel the day." I asked why I wasn't notified or had any messages or emails returned, and she didn't have an answer. If she can't even communicate about an appointment, I would not trust her with my taxes. read more

Being new to the area, I hated having to consult "the phone book" for something as delicate as personal taxes. I saw Diane's great reviews on Yelp and decided to give it a shot. Even though she has an established client base, she made time to see me. I found her to be punctual, professional, and knowledgeable. We had a comprehensive conversation up front, before even discussing numbers, and reviewed my & my wife's overall situation. Diane's great and I will go see her again. read more

Another tax season - another great experience. Diane really is just so friendly and accommodating. I'm surprised to see anything other than 5 stars on here, because that's been my experience with her, now 4 tax filings in a row (wow, I can't believe I've lived here this long!) She's very attentive to detail and just simply nice to talk to! Anyone needing some help really needs to meet with Diane! read more

I, too, am disappointed to have to write this negative review. I had a great initial meeting with Diane. She was very personable and reasonably knowledgeable. I wouldn't call her a tax genius. I had some interesting questions, and not only did she not offer any earth shattering insights, she also missed some basic things that others caught. Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed with her generosity with her time, her willingness to admit what she didn't know, and here promise to follow up. But that's the problem... She did follow up on one question, but when I called her with some additional questions, some of which were quite time sensitive, she just never got back to me. I left something like 5 messages with her service with no response. That's just unacceptable. A service provider always has to call back, even if it's just to say "I don't know," or "I'm too busy." You don't just leave someone out there hanging... Especially with something as important as taxes. So my advice is to find someone more professional. Else you run the risk that Diane will flake-out on you at a bad time. read more

Well, I hate to write this, but I happened to see many glowing reviews for Diane., Well, she did my taxes and after I came home I had a question regarding my refinancing. I called, sent an email, and wrote a note on the envelope with my payment that I would like to speak to her. NOTHING, nada, no response, which is some of the negative reviews about her. I am new to the area and I took a chance on her. She is pleasant, but I guess when you leave her office you are on your own. Good luck, but I really do not think she cares whether come back or not. That is just my feeling. read more

I have mixed feelings. She's very friendly and personable and seemed to know her stuff reasonably well but made a number of careless mistakes in the return, some of which I caught before it was filed and some of which I didn't. (Stuff like entering a capital loss as a capital gain and entering foreign income without converting it into US dollars.) A lot of people really like her, though, and she's reasonably priced. read more

I tried calling Diane to see if she would be a good fit for my needs, and was told I needed to "make an in-person appointment". No thanks!

Amazing. In just over an hour Diane solved a tax problem I'd been worrying about for months. She even topped it off with some super-satisfying number crunching on her printing calculator. Highly recommended. read more

I met with Diane 3 1/2 weeks before the tax deadline. She told me she would work on my taxes the following week. After not getting my returns back, I called twice and left messages with her answering service with no response. Finally I went to her office 5 days before the filing deadline to try to catch her in person. She told me that she hadn't even started the returns, but was hoping to over the weekend. When I asked her how I was going to have time to review the filing before the deadline, she said "maybe you'll have to file an extension". I would not even have known that had I not had time to stop by and see her. Needless to say, I took my paperwork back with me to find an alternative solution. Diane's communication and responsiveness are terrible. This seems consistent with some of the other negative reviews. read more

diane did my taxes for me the first time in exchange for the tupperware i sold. it was great! so great, in fact, that i kept coming back to her, and paid her with money instead. she never flinched when i wanted to write my laptop off for my business, and when i donated it charity eight years later. during the period when i did my taxes myself, i would have questions during the year of what i could write off, which she promptly answered through email. not only is she accessible via email for such questions, your appointments can be booked with an email as well! if you forget to bring something important relating to your taxes, email it to her. tech savvy, she is. the hours she operates during tax season are full-time-job friendly and she will have your taxes completed within an hour. after your appointment, she will return all your documents along with a reasonable bill and documents that require your signature in a nice color coded folder depending on the year. the documents requiring your signature are for online tax filing. efficient! if your refund is completely out of whack [meaning you are loaning too much money to the government interest-free or taking too much to the detriment of your bank account], she will calculate what adjustments you should be making to rein your finances in, and give you input on what else you can be doing financially. on top of all this, she has a great personality, and a great memory for her repeat customers. read more

Diane offered me a fair deal up front in our first interview, after making note of my tax predicament; I'd only be obligated if she could get me a better deal than I found for myself with e-filing. Her friendly helpful advice made it clear that my e-filing was (sadly) already in the ballpark for accuracy; but her advice for avoiding the debt pitfall in the future, and her clear explanations for the reason I had a debt at all, were very helpful and generously offered. How pleasant to find someone who'll offer straight up good advice these days! I left her office with greater peace of mind than I'd had in days. read more

Diane has been doing my husband's taxes for years and our joint return for the last three. Since I opened my own business, she has held my hand and walked me through all of the scary tax stuff that comes with owning a business, which has required a great deal of patience on her part. She is also super affordable. I would recommend her very, very highly. read more

My taxes felt pretty complicated this year - 3 different jobs, 3 different states, just got married, and my husband had overseas income! I was able to speak with Diane on the phone when I was looking for an accountant and she was just great - low pressure, didn't act like she was trying to get rid of me, and invited me to explore other options. We decided to use her services, however, after speaking with several un-friendly admins at other places. We went to her office in Davis Square at 5:30pm on a weeknight (hooray for post-work office hours!) and she did our taxes for us while we were sitting there. It took all of half an hour and she had them submitted to the federal government that night. Thanks to Diane our (generous!) refund will be in our bank account within a week and a half! Highly recommend. read more

Diane is the best. She's been our tax accountant and advisor for years. She's accessible, warm, easy going as well as smart and well versed in all aspects of tax preparation. She's easy to get to, has an accommodating schedule and gets the job done in no time. In addition she's so warm -- friendly and funny -- that it makes tax time something I look forward to each year. read more

I am a financial advisor and have worked with tax professionals at both large and small firms. In the end I chose Diane to do my taxes and she has been nothing short of wonderful. In my five years working with Diane, I have referred her 5+ people. Some with simple and some with complex tax issues. Every one of the referrals has called to thank me. There are few "no brainers" in this world, but if you need someone to handle your taxes - hiring Diane is one of them. read more

Helpful, knowledgeable, courteous, efficient and inexpensive. I had an excellent experience and would highly recommend Diane O'Brien to anyone who pays taxes. read more

As a new homeowner, I went to Diane for my first professional tax filing. She was very friendly, matter of fact, and made me feel like taxes were a piece of cake. She even told me that I won't need to come to her next year b/c I'll be able to take what she did this year and replicate it. Her fee was reasonable and I'm happy with the refund I'll be getting...I wouldn't have done so well on my own! Her location is great, too...right in the heart of Davis Sq. I highly recommend her! read more

My husband and I went to see Diane after reading about her stellar reviews on Yelp, and I have to say--you guys didn't let us down! We met with Diane last week at 6pm on a weeknight and I swear we were done by 6:25. Diane was friendly, helpful, casual but clearly knew what she was doing--and we're due for a great refund! I'd recommend her to my friends in a heartbeat. read more

My husband and I have been having Diane do our taxes for the past 3 years and she has never disappointed us. She is fast, friendly and gives great advice. Although we dread doing our taxes every year she makes it a very pleasurable experience. read more

Diane really put me at ease about some annoying tax stuff I am dealing with related to my freelance work. Her knowledge and manner have both been really reassuring -- I would recommend her highly. read more

Diane is great. She's quick, looks for ways to save you money and not too expensive in terms of preparing your taxes. I don't *want* to sit in a chair and talk about taxes for 2 hours, otherwise I'd do them myself. Diane asks the right questions and gets to the point. In, out, and money saved! I used her for my First Time Home Buyer's credit and we used her this year to file taxes. I'll certainly be back! read more

I'm sorry to see low ratings for Diane, as I've only had wonderful experiences with her over the past five years. She's fast, accommodating and kind. She was able to squeeze me in on short notice during her busiest time of the year just so that I could get my tax return done before the April deadline - what a huge relief! I couldn't help but give her a hug. I love Diane! read more

I love Diane. She is a calming, grounding presence at what is a very stressful time for me. She is honest, friendly, more than competent, and realistic/down to earth. She is definitely the best thing about taxes! read more

Diane is an AMAZING accountant! She is fast, reliable, KNOWLEDGEABLE, helpful and timely. I was so happy to have "found" her (nearly 10 years ago now!) I trust her implicitely with my taxes every year (as does my husband) and have routinely sent friends to her who have also been delighted with her work ... She is THE BEST! read more

Like other reviewers here have said, I really wish I didn't have to write this negative review. But I found Diane here on Yelp when she had nearly all 5 star reviews and so I feel obligated to relay my very NON-5-star experience. And judging by the recent spate of low reviews, I don't think my experience was all that unusual. We had Diane do our taxes last year and she made several careless errors that I caught, including one that would have caused us to pay $1000(!!!) in taxes we didn't owe. To her credit, she admitted the mistakes readily when I pointed them out, and given the number and impact of them, she offered to waive her fee. However, it was still a bit alarming to think what would have happened had I not reviewed her work. This year, when I was looking at our return again, I caught another set of errors - entries on a form that didn't make any sense. This was a form I wasn't familiar with so I hadn't paid much attention to it previously. When I emailed her, she said she was stumped and didn't know where her numbers could have come from, that the numbers on our return were simply what her program had spit out (even though they obviously didn't seem right - there were lots of zeroes where actual numbers should have been). She refused to look into it further and suggested we have another accountant try to figure it out because she couldn't. She said that she didn't have time to rework our return and was not willing to help us figure out the right thing to file/amend, despite the fact that she was the one who had produced the inaccurate form, nor was she willing to help us find someone who could figure it out. Throughout this ordeal, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. In the end, I tried completing this one form by hand and asked if she could as well, to sanity check my numbers, and she refused to that as well - something that should have taken an experienced tax professional maybe 5-10 minutes to do? Yes, she is very warm, friendly and helpful when you first meet her, and she genuinely seemed like a nice person. I can also forgive some level of carelessness because I can imagine how stressful tax time is for tax preparers. But I'm sorely disappointed to find out that when a real issue arises, Diane simply doesn't seem to stand by her own work... And due to her errors, the time and headache this return has cost us are WAY more than if we had just done the taxes ourselves in the first place. I would not wish this experience on anyone--consider yourselves warned! read more

Hilarious, practical, smart, kind, FAST, accurate, smart. When your financial life gets more complicated, pay her to straighten you out. She got me through a house purchase, landlord expenses, job change, starting saving for retirement, fixing mistakes of last tax preparer. I have come back year after year, and have sent friends who are buying houses and starting businesses. She's super smart, very responsive, patient (!), funny and a good accountant! read more

I was willing to overlook the lack of response to several messages I left over the course of about six weeks. However, finding an empty, locked office when I showed up for my appointment, not so much. (While I waited outside the building, I called her service to check whether the mistake was mine, and they confirmed that I my appointment was on the books.) Diane had come highly recommended, but now I will definitely not be working with her. I'm really disappointed. read more

Very poor customer service after she files your taxes. Very difficult to get a hold of, wont return phone calls or emails. I was audted and had to pay more to the IRS, however I couldnt even get ahold of Diane to discuss the mistake. read more

Solid, reliable, efficient, just the best. As my tax issues became increasingly more complicated over the years...managing student loans, elderly parent's trust accounts, etc. Diane has guided me through it all with impeccable competency. She takes all the anxiety out of managing our taxes, and I would never trust anyone else. She has helped us so much, she is simply the best. read more

I was audited by the IRS due to a mistake made by Diane, which lost me half my savings! She has refused to return phone calls since. I'm writing this so that others won't have to go through what I went through. Throughout these reviews there's a pattern of extremely poor customer service - actually nice to know I'm not alone. I found a new accountant who is trustworthy and responsive...you don't have to look far. Also other accountants are willing to talk to you before you sit down to do the return, Diane wasn't. read more

Mrs. Diane is awesome. I had set aside a whole hour to meet with her, and the appointment lasted only about 5 minutes. She's super quick, accommodating, efficient, and she charges reasonable rates. I can't wait to file next years tax return! read more

Diane is AWESOME! I've always used TurboTax in the past, but this year my returns were a little more complex and Diane's expertise saved me over $600. She is personable, accessible, and explains what she's doing. read more

Hilarious, practical, smart, kind, FAST, accurate, smart. When your financial life gets more complicated, pay her to straighten you out.