I won't be working with John Goode in the future. My questions to him went unanswered for weeks. Often, after emailing and leaving voicemails, the only way that I could get a response from John would be to leave him a voicemail saying that if I didn't hear back from him I would be retrieving my documents and using a different preparer for my tax returns. He never responded to a question in less than a week and this was months before the dead heat of April that is extremely difficult for all tax preparers everywhere.
The real gall of this guy, however, came when I received my bill. He charged me $550 for his services. He billed for 3.5 hours, which I think is close to a standard amount of time to file a simple no-frills tax return. Based on his week or more response time to my (very basic) questions and the fact that I literally watched him input my tax data in his office while I waited for 30 minutes only to have him then tell me to"take a walk" for 45 minutes while he "crosschecked" everything, I feel a high estimation of the actual time he spent working on my tax return would have been 1.5-2 hours. Oh, and did I mention that we did all this last minute cramming on April 17 around 4pm? I was literally the last return he filed on the last possible day to file and he called me in to his office with no notice and no prior appointment to complete the return only after I threatened to leave his business on April 15th because I hadn't heard from him and was concerned my return would be late.
The icing on top? He invoiced me for the $550 extremely promptly and I immediately responded to the invoice in writing asking for an itemization of the 3.5 hours he was billing me for. Three months went by with no response and then I received a PAST DUE bill from him asking for payment immediately. I again wrote him asking for an itemization of the 3.5 hours. No response. Another week later and I called him to leave a voicemail explaining that all I was asking for was a breakdown of the 3.5 hours. He finally writes me back (14 weeks later at this point) to say that if I want an itemization of the bill, he will have to "go back to his storage unit to get the files which will add additional time to my bill." Wow, the nerve of this guy. In order to get a fair accounting of his (very likely inflated) billing he will charge me even more money for making him go to the hassle of reporting his time accurately.
I'd rather work with a CPA who responds to my questions and treats me with respect, John Goode has failed even these most basic qualifications in a CPA. read more
