Couch & Associates, Inc.

Ke’Aloha and her team at Couch & Associates take a personal approach and it feels as if I have a true advocate for my dealings with the IRS & Franchise Tax Board. I have been a big fan ever since they started doing my taxes in 2009, and most recently, they have hit it out of the park for me when I got audited for 2011 taxes.
The Feds claimed I underpaid taxes in the amount of 32K plus 6k in penalties for 2011. $ 38,000. dollars!!! After employing a battery of strategic tactics, and thorough research, Ke’Aloha negotiated a final settlement of $ 395. I kid you not. Or in other words… I WIN.
I cannot recommend Couch & Associates more. They have 10 stars in my book. If you have an LLC, an S-​Corp, or for your personal taxes, this is the place to go.
Bonus: Since I live in The City, the newer office location in San Francisco makes it even more convenient to do business, but at this point I would go to Couch & Assoc. if their only location was Timbuktu.

KeAloha was great. Ok so she was 30 min late for our apt. When life gives you lemons you make lemonade, right?. So we went for a coffee at the nearby Starbucks.
We got a call when she arrived and we returned to the office to meet with her for real this time. She was super apologetic and met with us for about 40 mins answering what were probably pretty simple questions.
She was able to take some complex topics and turn them into simple and helpful advice. Probably saved us a few thousand dollars. Best part was that she did not charge us to make up for her tardiness.
So in the end what started out as a lemon really turned out to be a gold nugget.

I didn’t have a great experience with Kealoha. I was tired of doing my own taxes and figured it was time a professional took a look at them anyway, (TurboTax being a bot and all), so I came in and we had a great first meeting. After that, it was downhill. KeAloha was impatient and condescending and generally not great at communicating. Maybe she’s better for people who are super intimidated by taxes and just hand everything over without question because it felt like every interaction was «more in sorrow than in anger.» Sorry I am such a disappointment, Mom– thank god you’re here to the rescue! LOL. On top of that, she’s not particularly cheap for what was a pretty simple return. I don’t mind paying people for their work, but they don’t get to act like it’s a favor and a nuisance.
The icing on the cake was that she was brusque and condescending to her staff. As a lifer staff person myself, I hate to watch that. So I’m going back to doing my own taxes for the moment. Too bad– I like the location and I like the folks I interacted with who work for her, and we DID have that great first meeting.
UPDATE: I appreciate Kealoha’s response but I did end up filing my own return.

Our small C-​Corp has used Couch to handle our taxes and bookkeeping for the last three years. I can confidently state that in every financial aspect Couch and Associates has worked with us professionally, personably and with our best financial interests in mind for growing our small company. When we’ve had questions they’ve been diligently answered. When we call we are a priority. When we have piles of receipts they take on our book keeping. We are so pleased with the business relationship they have fostered.

We’ve used Couch to handle our taxes and bookkeeping for the last three years. We have a small C-​corp and are not the most organized about our records. Lisa, Charles, and KeAloha have made it easy and taken a huge hassle and source of stress off our hands. They are proactive about letting us know when we should consider changes to improve our tax situation, and they are patient and helpful when listening to our questions and concerns. I also know they care about their clients because both KeAloha and Lisa have gone above and beyond the call of duty on multiple occasions to provide help or address issues.

I just called this company to try to find an accountant for my company (C-​corp, we’ve grown to the point where I think we need better advice), and the woman who answered the phone appeared to think I was trying to get free advice on the phone. She refused to have a principal call me back to see if it would be a good fit, and emphasized that I could come in to talk but that it would be ‘only ten minutes, after that they start to charge.‘
Maybe this is a great company, but I will never know. Very unfriendly on the phone.

This review is long, long overdue.
My wife and I run a home-​based business which has blossomed from a few arts and crafts sales a month to a leading supplier and manufacturer of materials, self-​published books, and instruction with a worldwide distribution network and a customer base of thousands across the globe.
Our situation is unique: not only is our field of endeavor a very specialized niche, but we (mostly my wife) built it from the ground up, using our own systems and methods. This kind of operation can easily be a challenge to any tax consultant, because:
— While we have always kept meticulous records, we never learned industry-​standard record-​keeping conventions and have always tended to evolve our own systems. This means that any tax professional working with our records needs to learn our homegrown systems and then translate them into industry-​standard ones.
— We are immigrants from another country, with a very different taxation system and business law framework. This means that a tax professional must always be alert to the possibility that we are operating under a misapprehension about US and California tax procedures.
— The nature of our work not only crosses the boundaries between many established types of business (teacher, inventor, author, publisher, manufacturer, retailer, researcher, developer), but turns those boundaries into squooshy Jell-​O.
— In addition to my duties within our business, I am also a salaried employee at my «day job.»
From the first day we worked with them, KeAloha and her team have always risen to every challenge we could possibly throw in their path. They learned the nature of our business — and its plethora of wacky aspects — in record time. On numerous occasions, they analyzed our special needs and made a multitude of helpful suggestions as to how we could operate more profitably. They helped us to develop a comprehensive Tax Avoidance* strategy and to keep it evolving as our business does. They saw us through a ruthless California Sales & Use Tax audit which — thanks to the Couch team’s relentless efforts and despite our unorthodox record-​keeping processes — we passed with flying colors, not owing the BOE a red cent. I understand that is a very rare outcome for anyone who has undergone a tax audit elsewhere.
Charles is a Tax Wizard who has the amazing and paradoxical combination of wildly creative thinking paired with almost obsessive attention to detail. And when we needed a bookkeeper, KeAloha introduced us to Lisa, who has literally changed my life and decimated my daily stress level, and for whom I would happily stand on top of a live George Foreman Grill.
As I post this, on April 15^th just after noon, I’m sure Couch & Associates have probably not racked up a dozen hours of sleep among the lot of them over the past couple of weeks. I, on the other hand, have slept soundly through every tax season since the first day I walked through their doors.
Thank you, Couch team.
— — —
*Look it up: this term refers to the LEGAL way of reducing your tax burden.

We’ve gone to Kealoha Couch for the past three years. Their tax organizer makes everything super easy to pull together in preparation for the in person meeting. With complicated taxes this year we were particularly happy to have Kealoha and crew on our side. In short they are knowledgeable, easy, entertaining and always helpful.

All the positive feedback isn’t hype, folks — KeAloha and her team are the real deal. She got me out of a big bind in amazing record time, and everything was squared away and I was breathing easy in a few days. She and her team are well worth the reasonable fee for figuring out and filing my taxes — saved me quite a bit in the end. She made every effort to find any deductions I had.
KeAloha also wants to make sure you have smooth sailing from now on — I’m going to get set up with her bookkeeping department soon so I can avoid problems in the future. Despite being leery due to not-​so-​great experiences with tax preparers in the past, I now have complete faith that KeAloha has my best interests at heart. If I move, I’d still have her as my tax pro.

I don’t have a lot of experience with tax preparers. Up until this year I’ve always done it online and it’s been pretty simple. Last year however, I got domestic partnered to the love of my life and bought a house. Then I realized that since the Feds don’t recognize my relationship that things were a lot more complicated!
We found Couch & Associates through some internet digging. Their new San Francisco office is super convenient to both of our workplaces so we set up an appointment with Charles to do our taxes. Turns out that he is much smarter than we are and thought our taxes were pretty simple! Of course, he is also the guy who worked with the Feds to come up with a worksheet for domestic partners or gay married couples filing their federal taxes — so of course he thinks this is simple!
The worksheets we filled out prior to our meeting were really helpful. Charles was really informative and on the ball when we met him. Our taxes were done in almost no time. KeAloha was super sweet and went through the final product with us so we (sort of!) understood what had been done and what we need to do for next year. Bonus points because we got refunds!
My fervent hope is that DOMA will be struck down this year and we can get married and then go back to doing our own taxes on the internet. But if that doesn’t happen at least we know that Charles, KeAloha, and the rest of their team will be there for us ready to do the hard work for us!

Though it has been years since I have been self employed and had complicated enough taxes to need help — I would still heartily, highly and without reservation recommend KeAlohoa Couch.
KeAloha is a nice person. She’s lovely, kind and polite. As a tax professional — she’s very professional. She’s thorough, organized, detail oriented and incredibly easy to work with. You are in very good hands with KeAloha — pick up the phone and give her a call!

I don’t write reviews often but after my experience with Couch and Associates I was beyond compelled to speak of my experience.
I was in a bad place tax wise, I had neglected them for a number of years and it had gotten to the point where the IRS was beating down my door aggressively. I was very worried that I wouldn’t be able to financially handle the burden and became very overwhelmed quickly. The fear of garnished wages was beyond my comprehension and all the embarrassment that goes with that.
I came to Couch and associates and from the very moment I stepped in the door I was treated with the utmost respect. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. I took this as a relief as my anxiety had risen substantially.
The service I received was astounding. I came to them last minute in an emergency scenario as far as I was concerned. They took care of me thoroughly and saved me so much money on my return that I couldn’t believe it! They really went to extra mile by e-​filing for me and everything. What I was expecting to be up near $ 10,000 became a tax fee that was very manageable and truly unbelievable.
I can’t think you guys enough for helping me through this you are amazing and I can’t recommend you highly enough. I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOUR NEW SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE!!! You are my go to for any tax needs I will have in the future. THANK YOU !!!

Just wanted to take a minute to write a review of Couch & Associates.
I am by my very nature incredibly pessimistic when it comes to services offered by any business. When I go looking for guidance or recommendations, I love to jump on a site like Unilocal and read the reviews so that I can have a better understanding of what I could be getting myself into.
Whether it be happy hour or a haircut I rely on these reviews to provide me guidance. I wish that I had more time to write a reviews to help others like me but sometimes that is an impossibility. However, given my recent experience with Couch & Associates I would be remissed if I did not write something.
Rarely if ever does a company go above and beyond what is required for their customers. I am a young professional that recently graduated law school and had the inevitable task of trying to get an understanding about the complexity of my taxes and personal accounting as I dealt with the reality of trying to pay back thousands upon thousands of dollars in student loans. To say that this experience was overwhelming would be an understatement.
WhenI sat down to asses my situation, I felt like I was Odysseus lost in a sea of numbers and tax code provisions that I could not begin to comprehend. Thankfully, the staff at C&A provided me guidance and walked with me step by step, not only to come up with a plan for my taxes, but also from my own personal accounting. They provided me with a detailed and comprehensive budget plan that allowed me to focus on getting my work done so that I could begin to truly establish myself as a professional.
The staff at C&A were truly understanding of my position and my meetings with KeAloha were both informational and in many ways therapeutic. The burden of money and the weight it can bring at times is paralyzing. KeAloha had an understanding of that and took the time to make sure I understood all my options and I was comfortable with the plan. I was never rushed out the door even when my time ran over. She was incredibly accommodating to my schedule even offering to buy me dinner as she and her staff meticulously went over my financial documents late into the evening right in the middle of tax season. I really loved the fact that anytime I had a question or concern, I could make a phone call or send an email and It would be returned to me within 24 hours. This is going above and beyond.
I’m actually quite surprised there are any negative reviews. To be quite honest, as a Unilocaler, I very suspect of reviewers who have no history, no image and only bad things to say.

when some tax professional help is needed… start here.
thorough, courteous, reasonable and very knowledgeable with how to reach/​contact/​manage the IRS staff which means you get expedited service (to the IRS)

KeAhola is the best Tax Accountant I’ve ever come across. She is hilarious, honest, straight forward, and intelligent. She made the most dreadful of situations (taxes) so fun. Everyone who works for her is awesome too.
We owed back taxes and we had quite the mess. KeAhola got us on track.
Honestly she is worth every penny! She saved our family so much and she really knows her stuff. She’s honest and very direct.
If you have any tax concerns, KeAhola & Co is the way to go. I can NOT stress this enough. She is amazing!!!

As you can see, my current motto is «Can’t I pay someone to do that?» which applies to just about everything, but becomes especially crucial during tax season.
I wanted to find a tax genie who could magically make all my tax fears disappear. Or, more specifically, transform my pile of paperwork into a pile of cash. Oh, and they should also be very intelligent and experienced. That’s not too much to ask, right?
After some Unilocal research, I decided that KeAloha couch had the most genie potential. I set up an appointment just 2 weeks before the big, scary tax deadline and they got me in no problem. I was impressed by all the communication leading up to, and following my appointment. First they emailed me some paperwork I needed to fill out before my meeting (which, in hindsight, I should have filled out more thoroughly). I am accustomed to sitting down with someone and working line-​by-​line on my taxes, H&R block style, but the Couch folks do all the dirty work for you, behind the scenes. You just need to drop off that tax packet they send you, have a quick 20 minute meeting with your tax specialist, and a couple weeks later, they’ve got all your paperwork done and your refund amount calculated. Pretty magical stuff.
KeAloha must be the most energetic, funny, and unboring tax professional in the world. I wanted to go have drinks with her after our meeting, she is that fun to be around. She gave me some tips for next year’s taxes, and suggested I file for an extension, as those tend to be audited less than the normal deadline returns. Good to know!
This is a professional agency, so their prices are indeed higher than your drive-​thru tax shops. I think I paid around $ 450 for my returns (which were complicated — involving a rental property in Georgia). BUT… my refund amount was higher than ever, by about 30%, so all in all, totally worth the extra expense and minimal hassle.
I’m definitely sticking with KeAloha next year and enjoying that nice chunk of change she got me in the meantime.

Renee D’Ottavio is amazing!!! I don’t like doing the books for my business and I have difficulty keeping organized. Furthermore, I can feel guilty because I am not always the best at keeping good records. Renee has been able to sort through my mess of accounting and create an organized record that makes sense. Furthermore, she is always kind and encouraging when she talks with me on the phone.
If you are piled under a bookkeeping mess call Renee at Couch & Associates to help sort things out and begin making sense of your numbers.

My dad fell a bit behind on his taxes. Like 7 years behind. Needless to say this created quite a mess for him. After getting slammed with federal and state garnishments, me and one of my sisters finally talked him into having a professional get this straightened out once and for all.
In came Ke’Aloha. My dad handed over the piles and piles of paperwork that he was able to find and asked her to please help him sort out the mess. Ke’Aloha then went to work. Not only did she submit all of the prior year taxes but she helped to negotiate a payment plan with the IRS and FTB that works with my dad’s budget. She spent countless hours in negotiations and continues to follow up when my dad receives any new forms in the mail.
I highly recommend Ke’Aloha for any of your tax needs. She is personable, honest, direct and very good at what she does.

KeAloha and team have dealt with our complicated tax situation (dual citizens, income in two countries, back taxes unpaid — oops!) with relative ease! AND with a quick phone call she has saved me heaps in fines!
Any phone calls or emails are returned promptly and to place a tasty cherry atop all that, her staff/​team are all friendly and helpful!
She is amazingly friendly and incredibly knowledgeable. I like my accountant. It seems strange to say it, but it’s true! She’s cool and she helps look after my finances professionally! What’s there not to like?

KeAloha is the IRS whisperer.
If that alone doesn’t make you go to her, then add funny, personable, fabulous office staff, accommodating, flexible, HAPPY (yes, happy accountants), top notch, highly respected, and full service. I will never move out of SF just so I never have to leave this woman. I can’t believe I am talking this way about my accountant.