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My accountant never filed my income taxes!
Lankysean
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I hired a CPA to file my income taxes this year, I generally do it myself online but this year I bought a house, got married and my wife works out of state. Anyway, we went to the accountant in early March and gave him all our paper work, he said we would call us back in a week or so to let us know what the outcome was. We never heard back, I've called him at least 15 times in the last month and his receptionist only ever says "he will call you back" which he never does. I've gone down to his office twice, once last week and once Monday but he's always at his other office or working for home. Anyway, to make a long story short, we owe money on your income tax and he's never filed an extension or the income taxes themselves so now I'm fairly sure I will face some sort of penalty. I would have just gone somewhere else but he has all my paper work. I tried to call the IRS to tell them the situation but getting a real person on the phone is impossible. Any advice as to what I should do now?
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As an anecdote - and this is in Canada, not the U.S., so you laws may be entirely different / more lenient - I went to H&R Block to have my income tax return filed and they filed it / calculated it improperly, and I got in some (very minor) trouble. When I told them that I had filed through H&R Block, they essentially said, "Tough luck. It's your tax return, and you're responsible for it. If you hire someone else to file it and they screw things up, that's on you,"
I got off with a warning & a waived penalty, and a lesson learned.
For future reference, though, the automatic extension request for is super easy, it's less than half a page; just print and mail form 4868. If you think you're going to owe and you want to make a payment with the extension, just include a check.
I wouldn't be surprised if he did file an extension for you, though. I know that all of the returns I haven't gotten to yet have at least been extended.
But anyway, what he's doing sounds pretty shady. If he doesn't think he'll get to it, he should tell you that. Good luck. For what it's worth, the penalty is based on a percentage of the amount that you end up owing. If the amount you owe is in the hundreds, any penalty will be minimal.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was afraid of. Thing that sucks is he has ALL of me and my wives paperwork so I can't even go anywhere else at this point. The accountant said during our consultation that we'd owe about $1,400, could I just send in a check for $1,500 and call it a day or do I still need to get all my W2's and stuff back and actually file my taxes properly? When this is all done I do plan on filing a complaint with the CPA board in my state, I don't think anything will come of it but it's worth doing just to give this guy a little taste of the grief he's given me.
Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but it's almost certainly going to result in a better outcome than you just sending in a check (which will probably just be returned to you alongside an angry letter explaining why they need the paperwork as well as the money).
Definitely talk to a lawyer about what your accountant did (or rather, didn't do), though. There might be some legalese that can help you out.
It's literally impossible. I went through every option on the phone in an attempt to talk to anyone in any department but most simply say to check the website and the rest tell you something then hang up. I was on the phone for 3 hours running down every option. I'm going to go down to the local office Monday to talk to someone in person.
As for the accountant, I had my companies in house accountant (who is also a CPA) call my accountants office and was able to find out that this guy will be in his office Monday morning at 10am sharp, I will be waiting for him (not in a threatening manner) but I will be there. Our in house accountant also said he will be filing a complaint against this guy and it could be enough for this guy to loose his license, which is pretty cool. He also mentioned that this is more than grounds for a lawsuit and he will talk to our in office lawyer tomorrow to see what if anything they can do to help.
You can definitely just send in a check for $1,500, that's what the IRS would prefer. You can't just call it a day, becuase you'll have to file eventually. But like I said above, the penalties are all based on the amount you owe. If you end up not owing (because you've paid already), there won't be a penalty.
Just mail in a check with Form 4868 or 1040-V (or pay online at eftps.gov).
Sounds like you might be able to get it resolved next week though, so that's good.
I agree with everyone else that you should file an extension, but that's because 2-3 hours isn't enough time to make sure you've got everything right. However, it's enough time to give you a good ballpark estimate on how much you owe the IRS, rather than depending upon a random number that your flake accountant gave you.
Personally, I would give up on the flake accountant, and just use TurboTax. Your tax situation seems rather ordinary to me.
You can call their bluff, you can tell the secretary that you expect all your paperwork to be ready for pickup today by the end of today or you'll be getting police and a lawyer involved.
I would but the problem is I don't have any of my paperwork to sit and do my own return, that's my own fault because I didn't make copies like I should have. If I have to I will get the police and lawyers involved Monday if he doesn't show at his office.
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