Rayner CPA PLLC

I have been a client of Marc’s for about 5 years now — Marc has been phenomenal in helping me file my personal and small business tax returns, getting me the largest possible refunds that I qualify for. He has been great about working around my crazy schedule and filing extensions as I needed them. He gives me great personal attention, I can communicate with him on many levels — shows great interest in finding me ways to help grow my business and open up doors for possible networking with some of his other clients. Marc is very honest and open about my finances and always provides me with great pro tips on how best to manage them. My returns are always done accurately and on time, and with the utmost professionalism. I highly recommend Rayner CPA for all accounting needs.

I wrote a review, and Unilocal told me to take it down — they did not specify why, I am following up to get it reinstated.
In the mean time here are my thoughts on Marc
— I was looking to make a formal complaint against Marc with the CPA body so I went to the website, upon searching the public record I found that Marc has already had his license suspended back in 2008 for a criminal record (and for what I think was prison time) for selling drugs — I would warn anyone looking to deal with him to consider the implications of this, see:
— He is unresponsive and irresponsible to the extent it cost me thousands of dollars in late fees, I am a foreigner and I was a naïve customer, I left my tax in his hands only to find he failed me (calling me on the evening of October 15^th, hours before the deadline telling me I owed $ 50,000 — you can imagine my shock, horror and despair that something I hired him for back in APRIL that I thought was done came to this 6 months later)
— His practices are morally questionable, he recommended that I falsely file my return in order to buy more time, and asked me for my personal usernames and passwords to ADP and etrade

STAY STAY FAR AWAY– ACTUALLY RUN FROM MARC. I hired Marc to do my 2011 taxes. He gave me the same excuses that he keeps writing in these Unilocal responses– «he’s sick, employees leaving, server breakdowns», BULLSHIT and more bullshit. It was my stupidity that I ended up hiring him again to do my 2012 tax returns as he hired a partner who promised that now the services would be a lot better– he promised that if I paid him $ 500 a month, that we would have meetings and he would be on top of it, he hardly ever responded to my emails and put me on extension. Then he had me e-​file and sign off and said he sent all my tax returns. This year, I get a notice from NYS saying they NEVER got my tax returns for 2012, I called IRS and NYS for personal and business, apparently he never even sent ANY return! YES, you heard right– I paid this guy over $ 6k to do my taxes and he was so irresponsible and unorganized that he forgot to send any of my tax returns.
I got a $ 5k penalty through NYS and after endless emails to him where he keeps making more stupid excuses, he still doesn’t want to pay for the penalty and keeps giving me the run-​around– he should even refund me for the tax returns he did because I had to pay my new accountant to amend them because he screwed them up on top of never sending them, but he doesn’t even want to pay the penalty. What a mess, and it’s like pulling teeth to get him to take any responsibility. I am tired of hearing his excuses and will sue him and report him. Do yourself a favor and don’t hire him. I would like to say better off to pay someone more, but I paid him a lot, and got the worst service I have ever experienced in my life. Do your research before you hire an accountant, these reviews speak for themselves.

I reached out to Marc during the peak of tax season, but was pleasantly surprised at how responsive he was. He was up front about the fact that he probably wouldn’t be able to file my taxes in time, but was still able to quickly calculate the tax estimates needed to file an extension. After the filing deadline he was able to take care of my return, and was very accommodating about accounting for some more income sources that I forgot to provide with my original estimate. He also took the time to answer some questions I had.
Overall, it was a pleasure working with Marc and I’m definitely planning to return to him next year for my taxes and perhaps other financial advice.

This year was my first time ever seeing an accountant for tax season and I had a very positive experience with Marc Rayner. The scheduling process was easy, we met and talked about my finances quickly and he explained my tax opportunities very clearly. In the end I handed him my tax documents, He submitted everything and I saved A LOT of money. I recommend him for anyone who is looking to use an accountant for the first time.

I’ve been with Marc for several years now. He possesses just the right amount of friendliness and professionalism one requires. I’ve always been happy with his service each and every year. Never have I ever had any complaints and he’s always there to answer any question I may have. I recently had a baby and Marc understood I didn’t have much time and needed to get back home to my newborn son. Marc had me in and out of his office in no time. That meant a lot coming from a new mom.

This man saved me! This is my second year using his services. He corrected mistakes made at H and R block last year. This year he managed to correct a colossal mistake my payroll company had made. I didn’t receive the refund I had hoped for but he at least made sure to collect all information possible to ensure I wasn’t paying too much out of pocket. He is extremely professional and expedient. The office is great and in an easily accessible area. I don’t know what more you could want from a CPA! A+++

Amazing service yet again this year! Always a pleasure and I’ll be back every year! Thanks again!

Marc is an amazing CPA. He sat down with me and went through all of my unorganized receipts and invoices for the year and really worked out an organized plan with an outstanding outcome. Thanks to Marc I will be getting back way more than what I quoted when doing business with more advertised brands like H&R Block. He’s worth it because he made me feel comfortable and helped me understand what we needed to do. I will definitely be using Marc again. Thank you!!!

I’ve worked with Marc for 5 years. As is the case with most CPAs, there will be occasional times where 1) tax season and 2) the burden of meeting deadlines/​reporting requirements can cause frustration for both parties. When those times have arisen, Marc has always followed up and made sure that my taxes are done professionally, and that I am being given sound advice.
On more than one occasion, Marc helped me resolve some complicated amended return issues regarding my business (independent consultancy) with both the IRS and the state, and also provided some personal documentation for me when I needed to secure property. He is an excellent accountant and truly wants to represent his clients’ interests.
Marc does not «farm out» his work and always explains everything as he is going through the return. He is an astute thinker who prides himself on making sure you don’t sign your return until both parties are satisfied. He’s always welcoming and personable, and will sit with you in his office for as long as you need to get through any issues regarding your tax prep return. (Word of advice… book an appointment! Easiest way to get him.)
I would recommend Marc to anyone who is looking for an accountant for their business or personal needs.

Initially I’d given Rayner CPA a one star out of delays that had happened last year, but Marc understood the problem, reached out personally and promised to complete the following year’s return on a much more accelerated timeline for a discount.
I appreciate his honestly and straight forward manner in approaching and handling the situation, and this I have amended my review.
Thanks Marc for the understanding an reaching out, looking forward to future business.
Sina

In the two years that we used Marc’s service, he:
— ignored emails on a regular basis,
— missed phone meetings,
— did not respond to messages, and
— made innumerable poor excuses as to why all of the above occurred.
When he did respond, his emails often seemed like hasty afterthoughts that were either so filled with typos that they were indecipherable, or he sometimes responded to questions never asked with details that weren’t pertinent to my business.
We had two phone conversations where I explained in great detail that I understood that things can get busy, but that a simple, quick response to an email or message saying «Hi, got your message, very busy, will respond soon» would have sufficed. On both occasions he apologized profusely, acknowledging that he had been providing substandard service, and said it would not happen again.
Of course, it did.
I tried repeatedly and politely to overlook Marc’s unprofessional behavior and simply planned on not hiring him again (indeed we felt we needed to hire another tax professional to review his work), but his lack of response to a final simple request was too much. I tried on five different occasions to get an answer to this last question and when he finally did, it was incomprehensible due to typos. When I asked for clarification, he again ignored my emails.
Even his out of office message had a typo in it.
I would absolutely not recommend Marc as he appeared entirely incapable of handling his work load.
Interestingly, we hired Marc because of Unilocal reviews, so hopefully this will save someone the awful experience we had.

Do yourself a favor and find another CPA. This one will cause you more work and stress! The past bad reviews tell me that I’m not the only one.
As a small business owner, I do not take reviews lightly. But I feel it is my duty to share my horrible experience with this CPA.
So first thing: our return was filed very late, despite giving him materials early and a heads up months in advance that we really needed to file quickly. The worst part about this is that he did not return any emails to us for weeks. Getting a response from him was like pulling teeth.
He always, always will apologize and offer you discounts and etc. But nothing changes. I gave him so many chances, and I was disappointed every single time. I’d rather pay full price for him to just do his job right and well.
When I finally found another CPA, I told him politely that we no longer needed his services. Of course he tells me that he has some bookkeeping invoices to give me from 2014 AND 2013! — a bill for over $ 1300. And mind you, we’re almost at the end of 2014! I was outraged because now I have to go back to my 2013 emails and try to dig through my papers to see if he was really billing me correctly.
And low and behold, over half of the charges were double billed or incorrectly billed.
This makes me very concerned about my return. If he knew I was so upset about the experience I had with him, wouldn’t he triple check the invoice and make sure I wasn’t being double billed and everything was in perfect shape? NOPE. Not with Rayner.

STAY AWAY!!! STAY AWAY!!!
I just got married last year and decided to go to a CPA to file jointly since my husband is from another country and our tax situation was now complicated.
I went to see him in May and paid a $ 50 retainer fee. He filed an extension that day and that the was last of it. It is now August and I still have not received anything at all. I am a very understanding person, however there was barely any communication of the situation. Now I am accruing late fees because my taxes were never sent in.
Go to another more professional CPA!!! Save yourself the stress and late fees.

Extremely dissatisfied with Marc Rayner. He initially agreed to file my personal income taxes and my non-​profit taxes (a one-​page «card»). I agreed to pay more than I ever have in NYC in return for both services. On the personal income taxes, he waited until the last possible moment, letting me know he might have to file an extension (see comments from others on this also). On the non-​profit taxes (again, a one-​page card), he did not return 6 calls (voicemails and messages to his outsourced assistant) before the filing deadline passed. After the deadline had passed, his outsourced assistant set up a call which he missed. He later missed another call which his outsourced assistant also placed on his calendar. Terrible, frustrating experience. Would recommend opting to pay less for improved services elsewhere.

Marc has been my tax accountant for the past 4 years. Over the years he has provided solid, thorough tax advice and prep. There was a delay last year, but he filed an extension, got the work done and gave a hearty discount, which I think makes up for the waiting. The service from Marc and others in the office has been professional and pleasant. And it’s great that Marc is available year-​round for tax-​related questions that might come up.

Marc was recommended to me a by another start-​up. We had a few tangled knots and he was pretty understanding and cleaned things up. He saved us filing fees from other states and we were able to avoid filing for a year when we had no transactions. His rate is almost half of those large accounting firms and he’s on point. The most impressive thing was that he stayed up super late (until 11pm) working on our return to make sure that we met the deadline.

Marc is a nice guy. Very nice. I like him as a person. He also does high quality work. And it is a new venture so I wanted to support it.
Four stars only because there have been growing pains. Going forward, he has promised that he would start offering free returns if not completed by a given date, which pretty much sounds like he is backing up his guarantee with his pocketbook. Look forward to seeing if it can rise to five stars.

Marc’s a good guy and was helpful in both setting up our LLC and walking us through a difficult process of filing some confusing personal and business freelance taxes. I have used him for the past few years but unfortunately last year I ran into some issues of what appears that Marc was overbooked. That means my tax documents I sent in during February sat untouched, and Marc wanted me to apply for a extension. In the end I wasn’t fond of this since I did get everything in early, and Marc just didn’t get them done in time. Also in the past few months I have sent some emails in to employees but got no response which left me a bit bummed. For this year I went to another tax accountant that charged me half of what Marc did. I think Marc is good at what he does, but it just doesn’t seem like the right fit for us anymore.

I have been going to Rayner and Associates for many years and have been incredibly happy with their tax preparation services. Marc is a pleasure to work with and he has even found numerous tax credits for me that I never knew existed. I have recieved a large refund every year thanks to Marc’s extensive tax knowledge.
The newly renovated 5^th avenue office is beautiful and the staff are professional and courteous. I have sent many of my friends and co-​workers to Rayner and Associates and will continue to do so.
Today I finished my 2011 tax fillings with Rayner and Associates and this year was my best experience yet. I had a complicated tax return this year and was surprised that Rayner and Associates were able to have everything completed within a week of dropping off my forums. I even got a cool USB stick with this years and previous years tax returns!
Couldn’t be happier with Rayner and Associates, keep up the great work guys!