| Mar312009 | These are not Tax Professionals |
They are tax scavengers, preying on the smaller, less knowledgeable animals, exploiting the willful ignorance of masses. They are about as sophisticated as the poor, uncertified college student you used to pay to do your tax return.
I spoke previously of my tax reporting difficulties and I’ve since made little progress. Perhaps I have gained some important knowledge to store in my cranium but in terms of progress towards a completed tax return, I have made little.
I talk about these charlatan “professionals” because they claim to be smart guys and they aren’t. I did get recommended to one professional and he quoted me about $1000+ altogether to assemble a tax return. I wasn’t ready to pay that much but this guy sounded like he had some real brass balls and got shit done. I respected him because people on the outside often undervalue the hard work that goes into something so technical but he had the sort of prices and recommendations to let you know he wasn’t fucking around. He was here to do serious work.
Fast forward to my subsequent call to H&R Block who were very friendly but completely out of their league when dealing with my foreign investment account. I specifically requested an appointment with somebody who had experience in foreign accounts and after fifteen minutes with this lady, I realized she had bitten off more than she could chew. I needed someone to re-calculate my foreign account statements so they could be reported to the IRS and she basically told me that… I need to re-calculate my foreign account statements so they could be reported to the IRS.
So thanks a lot for:
- Telling me what I already know
- Telling me to go home and do what I was hoping I could pay you to do
A short time later, I’m writing emails to the customer support over at my Australian financial institution, AMP. All I could manage to contact was a person who, for all intents and purposes, was a PDF-dispensing robot that took 4 business days to answer an email. She helpfully sent me PDFs that I already had and pretended that the other bulleted listed of questions in my email did not exist. Look, I’m realistic, I know you can’t solve my tax reporting problems in one single email but ignoring my email and sending me something else shows you mean to imply that either you’re an idiot or I’m an idiot. A customer support professional would have the courtesy to acknowledge my question and escalate it as appropriate.
Last on my list is KPMG, the people who were paid by my employer to complete my tax return last year as part of my relocation package. Evidentally, they had the same difficulties as I did because they filed for an extension and ummed and ahhed until October before turning in something half-assed. I’m surprised I didn’t get audited. I politely asked them how they calculated their totals so that I could repeat this marvelous feat for the 2008 tax year and they helpfully sent me a link to an 80-page IRS guide that describes in the most general terms how income is reported. My email asking them to explain their work was evidently translated into a request for a whitepaper detailing the general principles of reportable income in the United States.
From this I learn: when the going gets tough, none of these guys know how to do the job they were paid for.
Business days until April 15: 10.
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