Bollinger Glenn Guattery Gunn & McAravy LLP

This firm came recommended to me last Fall and seemed to be a professional outfit. I was looking for someone to prepare my annual taxes and wanted to make sure it was done correctly and was willing to pay for the piece of mind. My situation is not difficult-​divorced dad with a home and a civil service income-​nothing weird and fairly straightforward. I telephoned Kelly Bollinger and told him my circumstances and wanted to get an idea of how much it would cost. He quoted me $ 400 with the caveat that it could go up if something came up. I deposited the $ 400 with a stack of organized tax receipts and such. Months later after forwarding the other required documents, he gave me a completed and professionally presented return and a bill for over $ 1000. After I got up off the floor, I emailed him about how the bill could have climbed so high without ever asking for any additional money. He replied my return was more complicated and that accounted for the final bill after a discount of $ 275 (over $ 1600-​really?). When I asked for an itemized invoice of how that final bill was generated, I got a simple summary. Because I was less than two weeks from the tax deadline, I offered to settle the bill for half of what he wanted and he took it.
I haven’t even mentioned the phone messages that weren’t returned and emails that went unanswered. For a supposedly professional firm, I think I would have been treated better by one of the cut-​rate tax preparation businesses out there. I will not be returning next year.