A new client of ours told us an outrageous story of a large tax resolution firm quoting $20,000 for tax help services.
The client contacted a large tax resolution firm for tax help services. The client had not filed for several years. The IRS was pursing the client for back tax balances. The client was quoted $1,000 to do an investigation. The client agreed and fully paid for the investigation. The tax resolution firm called the start of the process Phase 1.
The tax resolution firm completed the investigation. The result of the investigation are as follows:
1) Several years of returns have not been filed.
2) The IRS has filed a tax return for the client. As a result more, than $100,000 of taxes are owed.
3) There is a local IRS Revenue Officer assigned to the case.
4) There are three levels of IRS collections. The client is in the highest and most urgent level.
The tax resolution firm informed the client that it is time to move to Phase 2. The cost to move to Phase 2 is $20,000. They requested $5,000 down and the rest of the fee payable in 8 months. SAY WHAT!!! That is insane. To make the client feel better about the fee, they informed the client that they signed up someone for $80,000 just the other day. Hey look at the good side, $20,000 is a discount.
The client has paid $1,000 so far. That is unfortunate. However, the client found us to fix the tax problem. We informed the client that we charge $249 for the investigation. This includes gathering all IRS information, thorough review, and developing a strategy to fix the tax mess. We then review our findings with the client and finalize a strategy. Finally, we quote an affordable fee to provide the tax help services.
The client agreed to our $249 investigation. We called IRS collections the next day to get the contact information for the local IRS Revenue Officer assigned to the case. We then called the local IRS Revenue Officer and left a message. The local IRS Revenue Officer contacted us back in 2 business days.
We couldn’t believe the conversation we had with the local IRS Revenue Officer. The large tax resolution firm contacted the local IRS Revenue Officer a month ago. According to the IRS Revenue Officer, the call lasted for about 5 minutes. The IRS Revenue Officer gave the firm 30 days to file all missing tax returns and to provide collection information. We were informed that the 30 day deadline expired yesterday! This is crazy! It was only a few days ago when the large tax resolution firm talked to the client about Phase 2 and the $20,000 fee. This means the large tax resolution firm did nothing on the client’s case for almost 4 weeks. Talk about a quality service for $20,000. Luckily, the IRS Revenue Officer was more than happy to work with us and extended the deadline for providing the returns and collection information.
After the call with the IRS Revenue Officer, we had a follow up meeting with the client within 3 days. From there we worked with the client and the local IRS Revenue Officer to resolve the tax issues.
We understand that all business need to make money to survive. But this is does not make since. Attempting to charge $20,000 for services than can be completed for substantially less and not providing a quality service is not right. Our philosophy is to provide quality tax help services at a reasonable price. We were happy the client found us!