Dear Judy,
I really don’t know how to avoid causing a ruckus. Maybe you can help.
Recently our family CPA died of a major heart attack. He wasn’t that old and he frankly wasn’t that good. I’m a freelance writer and what our accountant didn’t know about tax deductions in my line of work could fill volumes.
The reason my wife and I kept him on? Because my parents used him, my sister used him, he belonged to my parents’ country club, and the accountant’s wife and my mother are bridge partners. I’m not kidding.
But my wife and I didn’t want to cause a fuss, so we sort of “helped” him with our taxes, meaning we’d read up on the IRS regulations and hint strongly to him about what we felt, based on our research, was deductible. He still made mistakes.
Once he added everything up wrong and the result proved costly, but then he reimbursed us. So we felt guilty, and once again didn’t fire his ass.
Now his equally clueless son is taking over the firm and assumes we’ll stick with him since, to quote his email to us, “my father always loved you like his own children.”
Help! We’re trying to get free!
Harry
Dear Harry,
Here’s what to do.
Write an email back to the clueless son, explaining A) how devastated you were to learn of his father’s sudden death B) how you and your wife need to save money in this terrible economy C) which means you both are going to do all your taxes yourselves in the future and D) which means you need (in case you don’t have them already) copies of your tax returns for the last 5 years.
Then go out and get yourself and your wife an excellent accountant.
Thank you for writing
Judy
Judy is right - time for everyone to move on
Hey man — what makes you think the son is clueless? I say - give him a chance. He may be great and save you a s—load of cash.
I did not expect this on a Monday. This seems to be some pretty good thinking..