Henry C Levy & Company, CPA

I hate to say it, but we’ve had problems with the Henry Levy Group ever since our old accountant, Ryan Van Valer, left. Ryan was great.
However in 2014, we had to deal with vaguely explained delays in our return, we had to keep pestering them each month on the status of our return, there was an opaque billing process, and worst of all, a massive unexpected and unexplained jump in the amount of our invoice — from $ 1175 to over $ 2000, after being told that additional fees would be «minimal». An $ 800 increase to an $ 1175 bill is not «minimal» by anyone’s standards.
Timeline of events:
In June, we received an original invoice for $ 1175.
in July, we asked our accountant, Henry Chen, how much it would cost to file separately rather than jointly. His reply was that «It doesn’t take much more work to do filing separate so the additional fee is minimal». Based on that response, we decided to go ahead with the work and believed it would be done shortly.
In August, we checked in and were told there were small corrections that needed to be made.
In September, we checked in again and were told there was another delay, this time with our accountant’s manager. Shortly after this, our original invoice was destroyed from their system (I kept a copy) and a new invoice was issued for $ 2000, without explanation.
In October, we checked in again, and the return was filed barely before the October IRS deadline.
Now we’re being told that the change from a $ 1200 invoice to a $ 2000 one is not an accounting error but was intended. How is that a «minimal» difference, as we were told? We never would have agreed to the work based on that amount. This was not explained to use beforehand.
All in all, an unsatisfying experience.