I've been a client of Brigante, Cameron, Watters & Strong for the past 6 years…read more
I came to them on a referral from my parents when I became a Partner in my firm and needed professional help in doing my more complicated tax returns.
Despite my parents' mention of a few excessive charges pertaining to simple phone conversations, I had their blessing and chose to go with John Watters because he was their accountant for years and seemed a likeable and knowledgeable fellow.
Each year, I was given a tax preparation booklet filled with tons of questions, many of which I felt should have already been answered based on past returns, yet I filled them out. Granted, I had never worked with an accountant before but I felt that I was doing a lot of the work here and Brigante, Cameron, Watters & Strong were taking advantage of their knowledge of the tax code and whatever proprietary computer program they've got and merely entering all the information I gave them into the computer. Easy money, right? It just seemed to me that I was paying for someone to merely enter information.
Occasionally I'd ask for advice and sometimes they'd offer help and sometimes they'd drop the ball and I'd have to follow up.
Still, I was fine with this. Working with them was easier than when I've used Quicken or Turbo Tax and I did get a slick and neat little package with my returns at the end of the year.
But for a cost; this firm is very expensive. My returns cost between $2,500 and $3,000 a year.
When I spoke with a friend in the industry, he told me this was ridiculous.
For 2011, I received a letter in the mail from the Feds, stating that my return was incomplete and that I would have to submit an interest statement from my bank and refile.
I could have sworn I submitted that form to the accountant but I gave them the benefit of the doubt, refiled and paid BCWS another cool $300 for the prep.
If this form was missing from my workbook, and it's a form I get EVERY year, why is it that they didn't catch this and alert me BEFORE having to go through the added cost of refiling?
Fine, I moved on.
For 2012, I alerted John Watters to the fact that my firm would be doing the multi-state filing that was necessary related to my Partnership and therefore he would not have to, saving me the added cost I'd been paying for the past 6 years.
When my firm initially sent out the K-1s, they were set up incorrectly, thereby giving the impression that the multi-state filings would be necessary.
I have an email exchange showing that John understood that he was not to do the multi-state returns.
Yet, they did them without alerting me and expected me to pay for it.
My firm did send out corrected K-1s shortly after noticing the error.
Don't you think that if BWCS was doing its job correctly that they would ask me the simple question, "Hey, you told us not to do the multi-state returns but they sent us K-1s implying that we would need to do them. Is this correct?"
No. But they certainly expected me to pay close to $1,000 for the work that they were not supposed to do!
When I sent John Watters an email disagreeing on the charge, I received no response.
Just a letter in the mail I received yesterday telling me that they would not be working as my accountant any more.
I wonder what else I've paid for in the last 6 years that I probably shouldn't have....
How about you?
