Client Reviews of Michael S. Hymes, CPA

My wife and I dropped off our tax documents on March 23rd. We immediately sent an email asking if they had received them and to please let us know if we missed anything. They wrote back and said they received the documents and they would look into it. 7 days later Mr Hymes wrote back to answer an unrelated question and said he would let us know if anything was missing. 8 days later we hadn't heard anything so I wrote an email asking if things were going well and if we needed to come into the office to finish the filing. No response. 2 days later I called to ask what was going on and they said they are working on it. I got a call the next day from an associate asking for some more info, my wife gave it to them that day. The next day (4/10) we got an email saying there was a 401k form, one neither of us knew about, that was missing. We responded asking why we hadn't heard about this until today, 3 days before filing, and were responded to by a series of rude and ridiculous emails from the owner Mr Hymes. I'm paraphrasing here, but he essentially said that his firm is not responsible for quality control of the tax submission and filing. He said it is our responsibility alone to ensure everything has been submitted properly and that he has no reason or responsibility to make sure the forms are properly filed. This is very confusing to me, and every person I know. I've never heard of an accountant that files taxes without reviewing the documents and asking questions about them. Here is his 2nd to last email clearly outlining his lack of interest in caring for clients. His last email, not posted here, says he won't do our taxes. 3 days before filing date. ---------- Once again, these are your finances, I can’t guess about what you have and don’t have.  These are your tax returns and yours alone!  Not mine!  You give us pieces of a story and expect us to decipher everything that has happened during the year.  You are way out of bounds!  I have not prepared your tax return previously and yet I should know everything about the two of you?  Sending emails and not responding to questions is not the way that I operate. Especially during the busiest time of our filing season.  You cannot abdicate responsibility with an email, that is ludicrous.   I am retained to prepare your taxes based upon the information that you submit, not play investigator on what is missing!  That is your responsibility, period. While over time you have not responded completely.   If my staff had not inquired about the missing 401K distributions, the returns would have been filed incorrectly and you would have received notices from the IRS.  Would that be our fault?    Remember that you are signing the returns under a Federal penalty of perjury on their accuracy and completeness.  Your understanding of an accountants role is misguided, off base and cannot alleviate your own responsibility in the process.   My open items are based upon the review of the data.  Please review your finances from 2013 and make sure that there is nothing further to report on the tax return. ---------- The best part of that email is where he says "I am retained to prepare your taxes based upon the information that you submit, not play investigator on what is missing!". When in fact in an eariler email he said this "I will look through the information and let you know if there is anything else needed for the tax return.".