Professional and knowledgeable, Mr Steve did excellent job with my taxes. As everybody said above…read moreand beyond to make everything right. Great job!!!!!

My mother in laws accountant, Steve, has gotten involved in my marriage. There is no excuse or…read morereason for him to do so. He is an ACCOUNTANT. He claims he needs to mediate between my husbands mom Betsy and my husband for financial matters. But he is stepping out of his field by stating he needs to mediate with us for everything financial. My husband only wants to talk directly to his mother. Not Steve or my husbands sister Alice that has also been causing major trouble calling the police on my husband and having him 51/50'd. Steve legally has not a leg to stand on with this. Along with the fact that since he did this, the MIB (medical information bureau) shows that my husband was 51/50'd it can affect my husband getting life insurance or even causing pre existing conditions not be covered because of him being 51/50'd in the MIB. My husband and I just want to give our two cents worth. Beware!

My husband has an independent auto repair shop in Poway…read more We opened our corporation early 2012 (before we were merged under another corporation so it alleviated us of bookkeeping, tax preparation, etc) and we started with a no name bookkeeper who I must say made everything 100x more difficult for us. We were paying too much for unfinished services, she was inputting incorrect information, and we were charged several late fees. I found Gerald online and said let me discuss our business with him to see if we can build a relationship. I was sold the moment we spoke with him. He is seasoned and extremely knowledgable. He also has saved us money in merchant processing, payroll taxes, etc. Gerald performs our bookkeeping, taxes, tire fees, and also prepares our business and personal taxes while streamlining the administrative part our business. We are currently opening another two businesses and you can bet that we are using his services. I would recommend him to anyone who needs it! We are ever so grateful to work with him. THANKS GERALD!!!

Gerald is an expert and excellent at what he does. Easy and convenient and on top of everything.read more

I have ran a small investment portfolio for years, and I have routinely struggled to find an…read moreaccountant that diligently and promptly addressed its tax needs. At Guardians CPA, I found that accountant. Ismail is incredibly diligent, competent, and prompt. He made untangling an error by a previous accountant as effortless as it could be. I could not give a higher recommendation for his services.

Highly recommend Guardians! Ismail has been so helpful with getting our taxes on track. I have such…read morepeace of mind with him handling everything. He is easy to work with and prices are very reasonable!

I've been a client of David's for the past 7 years (since I moved to North County). Originally, his…read moreoffice was located in Carlsbad but he later relocated to Poway and I still make the trek out to see him from Oceanside. Why? He's the most knowledgeable tax accountant I've worked with. He sincerely does try to get me the best refund possible... and every year, he doesn't fail to impress me. Not only do I see more return value than with any other tax preparer but I learn about how the changing laws affect me, write-offs I missed, and future tax saving ideas. Having a former federal auditor prepare your taxes is honestly the best way to go. David started filing my taxes as an individual and now files for both hubby and I. I honestly haven't been able to find anyone with the same qualifications and experience as David. As a disclaimer, I will say, David's skills are in high demand and keeps him very busy. I usually schedule my tax prep as soon as I get my W-2s and have all my paperwork sent to him well in advance. I realize some people wish to have their taxes/tax experience expedited but patience must be appreciated for quality service. If you're a new prospective client, my recommendation would be to email/contact a few tax preparers (rather than wait on one) since he has a high clientele or, if able, either contact David before tax season starts to get started. Finding a good tax preparer can be frustrating, but I believe investing time in someone you trust is worthwhile. Best of luck to everyone and may you get the maximum refund possible!

If there was an option to give this unethical company zero stars, I would have done so - it was…read morethat bad of experience. I have never experienced anything so terrible before. It was the worst $500 ever spent. David will take weeks to get back to you, if he ever does at all. Saying this experience was disappointing is a vast understatement. We selected Rundlett last year around this time because we had purchased a home in 2015 and need some extra help with our taxes. Rundlett had a 4 or 5-star rating at the time, and great reviews, so we went with them. We should have gotten the hint when they took a week to respond to our first email, and we had to contact them multiple times to get a response, but we thought it was tax season, so we'd give them a break. Eventually, they gave us a list of items to bring into the office and we had an appointment with David & Matthew, one of David's associates. After that they told us that he would call us in a two weeks to set up another appointment to review the outcome. Two weeks came and went - no call, no email, no communications whatsoever. We had to call and email again, multiple times to get David and Matthew to finally respond. We finally got an appointment with them one week before taxes were due, and we went over our options. When we met with them, they highly recommended that we file an extension because they want to try to save us more money. We owed a lot on our taxes, so we decided it was the best thing to do. When we agreed to the extension, we thought that meant a few extra weeks - so May instead of April. However weeks went by without any communication from them - no status of our taxes, no email telling us an expected date, nothing. We had never been through this process before, as we told them, and the lack of communication was astounding. I called, emailed and texted for weeks until I finally got an answer. And the answer was that we had until October, so "don't worry, there is no rush". We did not want to wait until October just because we had until October, we just wanted to get them submitted and move on -- so I had to convince them to finish my taxes. By the time all of this back and forth happened, it was mid-June until we could submit these and finally be done with this completely unprofessional company. Unfortunately, it didn't end there. In August, we got a statement from the IRS that we still owed money from our taxes and that we had a penalty on our account because we filed our taxes late and had never filed an extension. How is that possible? ... Well, other than the fact that David is completely incompetent and shouldn't touch anyone's taxes, he also claimed to file our extension, but couldn't seem to find our paperwork or proof that the extension was ever filed. I had multiple emails asking him to send a copy of the extension paperwork and a mail receipt for my records, and never did produce the documents. His assistant mailed me a copy of a receipt a month before we even met with them to stop me from bothering them, but I called them out on it and never did get anything for my records. On top of that, David failed to tell us that when you file for an extension, the money you owe accrues interest and you have to calculate that and pay that to the IRS when you pay for your taxes. It was a minimal amount (under $50), but for us it was the point. Again, he is the expert and failed to tell us this important detail. I called, emailed, texted them multiple times again and it took over two weeks, until the day before the payment was due, to get a response. I had to tell one of their associates that it was an emergency to get a call back. David and Matthew finally got back to me and said they were calling the IRS to ensure we didn't have a penalty on our account and promised that wasn't the case and there was a mistake. A week later, I had heard not a peep from them. Again, I called, text, emailed and tried to get in touch with no response. I had to call the IRS myself and wait on the line more than one hour to talk to someone to find out that there was a penalty on our account, but because I called and explained what happened, they removed it and confirmed they had accepted the payment. If you are looking for a professional company to complete your taxes in a timely manner, and communicate with you as any normal business would do, then you've come to the wrong place. You will do yourself a disservice by using them. Stay away, stay far away.

A couple years ago I got the kind of scary mail from the IRS you never want to see, and it's…read morebecause of a straightforward W-2 mistake David made on my income tax return. He still won't pay me back for it. The facts: - In 2021 I got a decent-sized raise at my job. (Brag?) When it came time to file my 2021 taxes, David accidentally COPY AND PASTED the much lower income from the previous year, 2020. So he underreported my income by a lot. Of course he had my accurate 2021 W-2 -- but he was too disorganized, rushed or careless to use it. - Not only that, he copy and pasted some *unemployment income* from 2020 into my 2021 return, so -- to add insult to injury -- not only did he massively under-report my salary, he also slightly over-reported it with non-existent unemployment income. - I ended up owing almost $10K in back taxes, interest, and an extra-high penalty. - After I paid the back taxes, he tried to help with appealing the penalty. But he did this by sending the IRS a half-hearted ashy letter about numbers that were "entered incorrectly" and he didn't specifically request or argue for an abatement in the penalty. - (I also paid a ridiculous amount of interest.) - Unsurprisingly the IRS rejected this attempt and ruled that the penalty must be paid. - It's around this time that communication with David York became especially spotty, where he said he'll call the IRS...but then he fell off the map and it took weeks to hear back from him. - I paid the penalty by the deadline. - He called the IRS (after the deadline lol) then emailed me claiming that the "the penalty and interest have been removed" and I'm like...wtf are you talking about. That's probably because of what I paid already?? - I've asked him to reimburse me just for some of penalties and interest, $1,852.68 -- which doesn't even include an earlier interest payment or state penalties that his mistake bubbled up. Gave him an address to send a check. But he hasn't. It's been radio silence from David York. - "You should hear back from me by Monday" is the last thing he wrote to me, back in January 2025, words to echo on into the void forever. - Silver lining though, I recently learned Rihanna's accountant also owes her money so now I have something in common with Rihanna. Read the one-star reviews. They'll save you a lot of time and $$$$$ in the future. (Oh, and side note not related to this income tax fiasco -- on a return for my S Corp at the time, he didn't even provide us the full return, just an authorization page that was missing Form 1120-S and the K1, so we were scrambling the following year looking for it.) I also noticed his business has a second profile on yelp, which might help him get around these one-stars. You should choose literally anyone else to do your taxes.

I chose David York to prepare my 2025 taxes and to help me strategize a solid tax strategy for my…read morebusiness going forward into 2026. David handled both my personal tax and my business tax situations. I am the owner and founder of Symbiotx, providing expert CMC (chemistry, manufacturing and controls) support/consulting for small biotechs which need my level of experience and expertise but cannot afford to commit to a full-time employee. My consultancy (Symbiotx) has steadily grown over the past three years such that bringing in an experienced "tax guy/gal" was warranted. I did my research and went with David. I am glad that I did. David is extremely organized, upon which I place a high value. After an initial "in person" consultation, he provides you with a detailed checklist and has you populate a shared vault where you can upload the various documents required to optimize the tax preparation. When all the documentation is in place, you have a 1-on-1 meeting (this can be done remotely on the phone or using Zoom) with David where he completes your state and federal submissions for your personal and business taxes. Because he and I are extremely organized, this meeting took less than an hour to complete and file all submissions. I had many questions, and David had answers. He is patient and professional. David doesn't work cheap, but frankly, I would be concerned if he did. I expect top-notch results, and I'm willing to pay for them. I came out far ahead of where I would have without David's help, and I enjoy the peace of mind knowing that we have a plan in place for 2026 taxes. I would recommend including David on your list of candidates if/when you find yourself looking for a top-notch tax guy.

Heath has been such a great help to our business! He has saved me from some complicated Tax…read moresituations and helped our company get back on track. Doing your company taxes yourself may save you money at first, but the IRS implications later on really add up. I learned the hard way to leave the important accounting up to the professionals. Heath explains things very well and not only did a fantastic job on our company's taxes, but also made me understand how to improve our accounting system. I remember my first consultation with Heath and his team in 2015. I explained my company's situation, and they did not even charge me for their time because they said I could wait till the following year to use their services. I appreciated the honesty, and was so happy that they did not try to nickle and dime me, which I would have totally fallen for. Thank you for being a great business and part of the Pacific Beach community!

I would not recommend Heath and his staff. I feel like Heath only wanted my money and gave me lip…read moreservice when dealing with my tax problems. He seemed very "scammy" overall and after reading the other reviews I know that I am not alone in my experience. Please keep sharing these experiences because word is bound to spread hopefully. He has a younger assistant that I thought was his daughter... it was his girlfriend. Opps. So that he cannot say I was not a real potential client, I use a different name on here so he and other I badly review cannot attack me personally.

This is a fantastic tax and accounting firm. Their team exemplifies integrity, strategy, and…read moreaccuracy. I highly recommend Blum and Clark to business owners in need of comprehensive tax planning services.

I have worked with the offices of Blum & Clark since 1993. We first met when I was working as the…read morecontroller for a small company. I was very impressed with their offices and soon hired them to do my personal returns. I have now been their client for the past 24 years and have never needed any other tax advice but theirs. Robert and his staff are incredibly professional while being personable. They are very responsive and always keep tabs on what is needed for my tax requirements. I highly recommend them!!

My husband and I are still genuinely confused about how our relatively simple tax return was…read morehandled so poorly. We chose Max based on the positive reviews. We had recently gotten married and filed jointly for the first time. Our return consisted of four W-2s and a gifted property deed. We uploaded everything requested, and Max confirmed he had all the necessary documents and should have our numbers finalized by our first meeting scheduled the following week. At our first meeting, we were shown a large refund amount, which surprised us since we typically owe significant taxes individually. A few days later, Max admitted he failed to include all four W-2s in the calculations. Once corrected, the outcome changed dramatically and we owed money instead. To his credit, he refunded his preparation fee and offered to file an amendment at no charge. However, the amended return numbers did not match the revised figures we reviewed. Shortly after, we received federal and California refunds that also did not align with the submitted amounts. Months later, the IRS notified us the return was processed incorrectly and requested repayment. We immediately paid it back and are still waiting to see what happens with the California Franchise Tax Board. What makes this especially frustrating is that this was not a highly complex return. It was four W-2s and a property deed. We later consulted another reputable tax professional who was also confused by how these errors occurred. After revisiting prior reviews more carefully, we noticed similar complaints involving incorrect calculations and filing inconsistencies. Based on our personal experience, we strongly encourage others to carefully review all submitted figures and consider obtaining a second opinion before filing. This review reflects only our personal experience. Also, there is no need for a public response from the firm. Multiple apologies do not resolve the stress, confusion, or time spent dealing with these issues.

My wife and I chose Max to perform our taxes, a filing that on paper should be pretty cut and dry…read more 4 W-2's between the 2 of us and that's it. Nothing complicated. Apparently Max thought the same thing and became complacent, causing him to miss one of the 4 W-2's we provided, causing it to go from us getting a sizable return to now owing money. This resulted in him having to file an amendment which took way longer to be processed, and having the CA FTB and the IRS sending the incorrect refunds which I ultimately had to pay back. My problem is not that we owed money. I get that part. But the fact that this filing should have been a walk in the park yet was turned into a situation where I had to deal with the IRS directly for the first time in my life because Max and his shoot-from-the-hip cowboy BS thought that this was too easy to fail and thought he was making an easy over 500(!) dollars. Granted, we were rightfully refunded the outrageous sum that Max charged us for the filing but it does beg the question, where do you people get off charging over 500 dollars for a simple tax filing? It's not as if we had multiple businesses, dependents and assets to work with. He already had the numbers filled when we say into his office so this was obviously an easy close, yet he still screwed it up. I could have taken this to Turbo Tax or H&R Block and they would have done it for less that half of what Max charges and they wouldn't have made such a novice mistake. Max, you caused my wife and I a lot of trouble during a time where we should have been celebrating. This was our first year filing taxes together and were in the middle of a move to another town entirely so this burden was something we definitely did not need. But no worries. I am going to make sure that knowledge your incompetence is spread on any forum I can find, and any organization that fields complaints from hacks like you will have you on their radar. Let's see if I can't create problems in your life as you have with mine.