Robert Diaz:
My husband and I were clients of Robert's for many years, up until 2021. Our time with him in the beginning was *okay.* His communication style was lax, and he needed repeated nudging to prepare our taxes, with him often not getting to them until the actual day of deadline (which usually resulted in us having to scramble to make our payments in order to not be late). But, we hung in with him and hoped that things would improve. At the very least, we thought our taxes were being handled appropriately and professionally.
In 2021, we received our last minute returns from him per the usual. No actual comment from him, just the (insanely large) amount that we owed. My husband thumbed through the tax return and noticed penalties to the tune of 80 grand called out on some of the pages. We immediately emailed Robert to ask why we were being penalized - no response. He did not respond to a single email of mine, nor my text, and finally responded to a single phone call from my husband. He admitted that "it had been a hard year" and later emailed us a brief note that said he could send us info to possibly get the penalties abated. Essentially, putting the burden back on us. He never responded to a single outreach from there on, leaving us in the lurch to find and pay for another competent accountant to reach out to the IRS on our behalf, something Robert easily could have done to rectify his mistake. But didn't. We had to pay someone else to fix his mess. Nearly two years later, we're still working to get our $80,000 ++ returned to us thanks to his gigantic error.
Mistakes happen, but an important quality in an accountant is someone who doesn't bury their head in the sand and leave the client up a creek. It was an incredibly EXPENSIVE and disappointing end to a tenured working relationship. read more
