Morling & Company
THEY DID NOT DO OUR TAXES!
They failed at the one thing that they were hired to do. We hired Morling & Company in February after deciding that the accounting firm we had used for the last few years was too big to really care about our tiny business.
Morling & Co., a firm that seemed tailored to small businesses, told us no problem, gave us an info packet, and said if we got the info packet back to them by March 21st, our taxes would be prepared and e-filed by April 15th.
So, we fill out the appropriate information about our finances, gather all tax documents and send them off by March 21st as directed.
We heard from them once right after sending the packet, where they called and asked a few follow-up questions.
Then, nothing….we waited and waited. When we hadn’t heard from them by April 14th, my husband and I were fairly concerned.
Tax day came and they still hadn’t called, so my husband calls and they admit that THEY DID NOT DO OUR TAXES! What?
Then, to try and escape the liability they themselves created, they “advised” us to pay a tax rate of what amounted to 50% of our income to cover THEIR butts so that penalties and interest wouldn’t start to accrue.
FURTHERMORE, he tried to get US to file the extension for filing when THEY were the ones that missed the deadline, so that it would seem like WE had missed the deadline, and not THE FIRM WE HIRED TO WORRY ABOUT THIS STUFF FOR US.
To make matters worse, when we were able to see what little calculations they had actually accomplished, they had our income off by $62,000!
I know all of this sounds made up, I can hardly believe this happened myself, but unfortunately it is all too real.
I don’t know how a company stays in business when they fail at the one thing they are hired to do, but I AM TELLING EVERYONE I KNOW TO STAY AWAY FROM THIS ACCOUNTING FIRM!
What a freaking circus, I was and continue to be flabbergasted by this.
Needless to say, we fired Morling & Co. and have hired another accountant to file our taxes.
Professional
Professional, courteous, experienced and prompt.
Never Again
I told him that I would have liked to know of this $25,000 liability before the day it was due, and he said “didn’t we send you the draft returns a couple weeks ago?” When I said “no,” he said “You know, I’m sorry about that. I understand if you are disappointed.
I’ve been disappointed with this whole practice too the last couple of years – it’s just gotten a lot harder to complete these things and sometimes clients don’t get us all the information we need…” Similar excuses went on for a few minutes before I finally let him go.
A few minutes later, he emails me the draft returns with a form to complete for ME to request the extension (after promising me he was going to take care of that). I opened up the draft returns and the income he has listed for us is tens of thousands of dollars higher than what we actually earned (which explains why he thought we owed $25,000 when apparently we did not).
Scammer
Retained Morling & Co. to prepare our individual tax returns for 2013. After an initial interview, I was quite satisfied with the choice and impressed by the knowledge and kindness of the CPA assigned to our file. I was advised to submit all our documentation and a completed tax organizer by 3/23 to ensure that our returns were ready to go by 4/15, and I did so.
Approximately 1 week later, I was contacted by the CPA and asked some pointed follow up questions, which I answered the same day. The CPA thanked me and said he would get back to me shortly regarding the returns.
By 4/14, I had heard nothing from the firm at all. Thus, at 9:00 a.m. on the 15th, I called and wrote an email to the CPA to inquire as to the status. I was advised that he was not in the office because the CPAs had worked well into the evening the night before.