Don't take the chance
We went to Steven when we were opening our first business. He handled our personal and business taxes that year. He said we ended up owing the IRS $40,000. We started making $650 payments each and every month. Months later we then figured out we were supposed to be paying a “sales and use tax” that we had no idea about. It was our very first business and we were lost. We talked with the Comptroller, and they extended our date as long as we filed by the new date they had given us. We went to visit Steven to do our taxes again and he agreed that he would file the Sales and Use tax. We told him about the situation and explained that the taxes had to be filed by that date. Five days before the deadline I started calling and emailing to make sure we were on track. I would call every morning and then again in the afternoon. As well as emailing him daily. I heard nothing back. The deadline date came and went and we still hadn’t heard anything. I had to call the comptroller to see if our taxes had been filed and they had not! They said that since we missed the deadline we had to come up with the ENTIRE back amount plus fees and penalties or they were going to shut our business down until it was paid. We were absolutely beside ourselves, and I kept trying to get ahold of him. I finally got ahold of him and he said they had already been filed. I called the comptroller back and that same afternoon is when he filed. Steven had flat out lied that they had already been filed. He hadn’t filed them until AFTER he told me they had been filed. Then we had to work and beg the comptroller to allow us to make payments. Steven tried to get us to file an extension and tried to make the situation better by filing a form to see if we could get our penalties back. By that time, though, I had already talked to them and filled out that same form and had taken care of everything. Days of thinking we were going to be shut down and scrambling to come up with the money to keep that from happening. Having a new business is stressful enough, trying to make ends meet with a new business is even harder. Then you throw this on top of everything, it was one of the most stressful times we had in opening our business. All because he wouldn’t return calls and wouldn’t do the job he was paid for doing. Because of him we even had to pay more fees. He never dared to bill us for our last taxes. We took our taxes to another CPA. That CPA was not only able to get the $40,000 dismissed but he got back all the payments we had been making as well.
It’s very sad because he has the ability to cause a HUGE amount of issues since you’re dealing with the IRS! I wouldn’t go to Steven if he were the last CPA on earth. You’re better off managing through it on your own. Don't take the chance on something so important!
