Wow! This place, and Juan Pena in particular, is so bad that it borders on the comical. You'll almost think that you're part of a Saturday Night Live skit because he asks questions that seem disconnected from reality. He doesn't seem to even have a basic understanding of tax liability, but when you enter you'll be greeted by an electronic sign that trumpets his -23 years of tax experience.-
Anything and everything that you might think of in the experience of getting your taxes filed professionally was done poorly:
- zero interest in asking us any questions that might be relevant to determining our tax liability... Like occupationally specific deductions, small business expenses, or credits for which we might be eligible. I actually had to prompt him to talk about tax deductions for subscriptions to professional associations and publications
- he had no ability to operate the software that H&R Block provides. I had to prompt him three or four times to find my file using my personal information, and the conversation went something like "see how I can't access it?" ... suddenly he is able to access it mysteriously... "oh, I guess the system is working today."
- I emailed him with some documentation around noon, and at 3 PM he had no idea that these documents were available. To be fair, they don't accept documentation via email. But when I asked him about it he said, "I don't check my email often."
- they require you to upload your tax documentation through their portal, but I was unable to login time after time. Turns out it is because he entered in my personal information, such as my birthdate, incorrectly so the system thought I was trying to fraudulently gain access
The bottom line is that they wanted to charge between $500 and $600 for a reasonably simple filing, but it seems that even with "23 years of experience," Juan is just a glorified data entry clerk and has no ability/ interest in helping you manage your tax liability, just entering in data here or there and hitting the submit button. read more