The Worst Tax Preparer Reviews

Client Review of

Brett P. Philips

Frisco, TX

Frisco, TX
October 9, 2021

I am very suspicious of these 5* reviews. I met with Brett Philips on March 8th, 2021 to discuss my roofing company taxes & real estate company taxes. Brett Philips & Emilia Patrinos are a polished Foxy Luxy that will tell you anything you want with a smile to lure you in their nest. Brett told me in person with my book keeper that we can not go back and look at 2019 taxes, but we can take your deductions and roll them over to 2020. After 7 months of sending our quickbooks, bank statements, credit card statements, etc. pretty much everything my book keeping professionally puts together, and spent over $30,000 in service fees with Shifflett & Philips to do my 2020 taxes. Brett & Emilia did not finalized my taxes properly. They did not maximize my returns, they did not input all my expenses, they did not input my company vehicles correctly, and they did not update company assets correctly. This cost me over $100,000.00 in taxes, fee's, and write offs. When I asked Brett & Emilia why they did not input these items. They both got defensive and did not want to go back and review what they missed or did wrong. Seems like they are used to working with people that don't understand taxes and they just blindly trust them with their decision making. I would strongly recommend you question everything they say and do, review all your tax returns carefully, and have a second opinion or another CPA look at their work. Brett & Emilia will tell you what ever you want to hear just to get your money. Unfortunately most people don't understand taxes as well as I do so they blindly trust what these two polished Foxy Luxy's say to them.
Client Review of

Linda S. McGuckin, AFSP

Vallejo, CA

Barcelona, Spain
September 13, 2021

About two years ago, the IRS notified me that my 2018 tax return, which Linda McGuckin had prepared while working at H&R Block, was done incorrectly and that I owed them money. With that year's return, I had paid for an H&R Block Peace of Mind agreement, which states: "If we make a mistake, we’ll reimburse you for up to $6,000 in additional taxes owed." I notified Linda, reminded her of the P.O.M. agreement, and she agreed to investigate the issue. Months later, after long delays and numerous emails asking her to act and inform me, she notified me that the IRS has disallowed a Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. She did not say why. She went no further with her explanation except to say, "This is an IRS problem." In other words: "My responsibility ends here." I continued to ask for more details and a solution but got none, so I then contacted someone higher up at the company for help. I received another year of stonewalling, so I contacted the IRS myself, who confirmed that my tax preparer, Linda McGuckin, made egregious errors on my 2018 tax return, which caused the IRS to disallow a Foreign Earned Income exclusion of over $6,000 and caused my tax bill to up as a result. THE IRS SAID THAT BLOCK WAS RESPONSIBLE, CITING LINDA'S SLOPPY WORK THAT DIRECTLY RESULTED IN MY FOREIGN EARNED INCOME EXCLUSION BEING DISALLOWED. The IRS went on to say that Linda's sloppy work included failing to fill in my wages on Line 1 of my 1040 form (which caused the IRS to ignore my 2555 form), along with other empty lines and other errors, such as submitting the wrong authorization form (the 8821 instead of the 2848). I have yet to receive any further response from Linda or Block.