TLDR: I am astounded at how poor her communication is, and I'm incredibly upset at her…read moremisrepresentation of how quickly she can work. She new from our initial consult that we are not the average return. As the professional, it is HER responsibility to adequately represent what kind of time period we should expect and to be available to answer questions that we have. The only conclusion that I can come to, is that she filed an extension because it was convenient and then pushed us to bottom of her stack, inevitably costing us money.
We were told, "It takes us 5 days to prepare taxes" (no mention of a wait period but I figured 2-3 weeks). Eight weeks later, neither our corporate nor personal returns have been completed.
I was told, "Three weeks is plenty of time" to file our corporate taxes. The week they were due, she filed an extension, stating that because we were new clients she wanted to take extra time to make sure there were no mistakes and everything was in order. I appreciate that sentiment, but that was not the expectation that she had been setting. In the month following the extension, we were told 4 times when she was going to start our taxes (and even when she would have them completed by) but they were STILL not done! We got the same spiel from a month before about taking extra time. We have a lot going on financially, but not so much that she needs a month to review the numbers!
As 4.18 drew near, I expressed my concern 3 times that I didn't want to be penalized or pay interest on what I owe (at this point I was calling the office directly, as her communication is just awful - see below). They were neither concerned, nor did they guide me in how to figure out the minimum payment due to at least avoid the penalty.
Concerning Laura's ability to communicate, she admitted, "During tax season I'm hard to get ahold of." If I am paying you for a service, I better be able to get ahold of you, no excuses! Needing 24 hours to return a call is understandable, but she wasn't even that considerate. It took me multiple days of texts, calls, and emails, and a final call to the office requesting a phone appointment for her to take me seriously.
While she was still holding all of our paperwork, I needed to get a copy of something; Laura offered to make a copy and email it to me. After 3 or 4 reminder emails, and offers to stop by the office, with no response from her, my husband finally went in 10 days later and snapped his own photo of the paperwork.
