Normally my taxes are pretty simple and clear cut, but a couple of years ago I had a foreign tax credit left over from the previous year that I did not know how to handle. I went to Beckers, waited in a long line and went through the process with a tax specialist. After finishing she asked me if I just wanted her to go ahead and file my return. I was shocked and told her no, that I hadn't even looked over it and neither had she. So she printed it out, I told her I would take it home and look it over and call her back and then she could file the return. When I looked it over, I realized that that not only was the foreign tax credit handled incorrectly but that also the tax deductible IRA that I had contibuted to and we had discussed was not on my return. I went back to Becker and had to wait in the long lines again. After making a big scene in the waiting area over my botched return I was able to speak with Mr. Becker. After looking at my return he brought someone else out to handle it and inform me that my return had erroneously already been efiled and that we would have to do a revised return. The errors on my return amounted to a reduction of refund from the IRS of around $7000. Had I not had previous experience doing my own return I probably would not have caught the mistakes and we would have been out $7000. Doing a revised return also delayed our refund considerably. Needless to say they refunded the fees that we paid to them.Then a year later we received a notice from the IRS that they had found another mistake on the return that I missed. Two numbers had been transposed and we owed about $250. The most concerning thing to me was that I called Beckers several weeks after we had done the revised return and asked for the person who had initially done our return and she was still working there. She was obviously not qualified to do the job and they kept her employed.
Pros: None
Cons: Incompetent Employees, Long Waits, IRS Problems
more