Tri-Valley Tax & Financial Services

First of all I do not want to see a comment back from the owner okey? I was a customer therefore I am in titled with my opinion based on my experience. Also I do not need your justification as regards to why you think your firm is perfect and all the customer who leaves negative reviews are all crazy and stupid. Lastly, let me remind you, your comments are public also, so don’t humor me with your excuses because there is an old saying: customer is always right! So now we are getting somewhere, your business can’t be perfect because there is no such a thing called perfect. You need to learn from your mistakes and do better so don’t be commenting every negative comments that the customer made, and telling us how right you are and its all our fault that the taxes are screwed up. Unless you can’t tell me you never make any mistakes through the 20 plus years of your career, which we all know it’s total BS cuz everyone makes mistakes.
Now let me start with my observation of the owner. He is 100% way above his head and think he knows better than the CPA, even though he went to a two year college and don’t have an accounting degree. Secondly him and his staff all have an attitude and they do not understand if you are running a normal business, then you need to act professional, even when the customers are upset. Guess what? This may be a shocker to you but you are in the SERVICE business so get your attitude straighten up before you take on more business! I called and left two messages with these people at the front desk who don’t know what customer service is. They refuse to service me because I called twice in a day to talk to the owner regards my tax information. Well if you don’t want to work, then stay home. No one is going to take your attitude unless you are the Big Four firm! Then the owner called me back later of the day… Finally!!! But he called me back to tell me «we have a problem with you therefore come get your stuff and go somewhere else.» Big deal!!! Omg my sky is falling down… Ha! Hey if you have time to call me back to tell me you have a problem, you have the time to call me back to answer my legit question. So don’t bs me saying how busy you are and don’t have time to call the people who feed you. If you are lazy sitting on your butt and don’t want to work and claim you are more busy then the president, then do a better job at lying. This place is a joke! Charge you $ 1000 and yet acting like you did me a favor. My Suggestion to you is to save some money, and go to an university and take a public speech class, HR class, and get a CPA degree!

I have worked with Howard for about 3 years now. And, the service and professionalism I’ve experienced with his firm declined rapidly, starting in 2013, after my father died. It seem once I inherited a trust and my taxes became more complicated, I could no longer get Howard’s attention. Worse, when I tried through his staff, they treated me with complete disdain and unprofessionalism. They actually got hostile with me if I didn’t accept that Howard couldn’t make time for me because he was busy with «clients». Too often I had to remind Laura and Dusty, in particular, that I am one of those «clients» who paid a retainer for his time. To date, Laura and Dusty have never acknowledge me as a valued customer. NOT ONCE.
More importantly, the firm lost my 2013 tax information after the extension filing deadline. And, after I resent it, it still took Howard a year to get it ready. My 2013 taxes have yet to be filed as of March 2015! When I finally insisted on an face to face appointment, I had to wait weeks. And, then, when I called to confirm my appointment this week, his staff told me my appointment was inexplicably no longer on the calendar. The receptionist, Alexa, first said she’d investigate and call me back within minutes. When she didn’t call me back after a half hour, knowing I was supposed to be meeting Howard that very day, I was sent to Dusty. Dusty expected me to understand that Alexa’s priorities are walk-​in clients and I would just have to wait for an explanation and, again, time with Howard. Worse, Dusty refused to acknowledge my understandable upset over the constant suggestion that I’m not a client who deserves attention. In this final instance, Dusty insisted that I needed to either wait for her or Howard to call me back with no guarantee that either would OR I’d just have to stop calling the firm altogether. When I told her this was an unacceptable set of options, she hung up on me without warning. UNBELIEVABLE behavior for a firm of this nature – holding people’s filings hostage in this manner.
In summary, Howard and his crew have left me stranded for over a year with a late filing for 2013 and an expectation that I accept his firm’s lack of empathy for and follow through with his clients.

We used Howard for taxes and financial advisor for almost 20 years. We should have stopped ten years ago. Increasing errors on our taxes including his office NOT filing in 2011. Howard was not happy when we paid the fines; we did after the umpteenth letter from the IRS stating they were going to seize assets. Every year the last six years we have owed additional taxes because of errors made by his office. Just received another letter from the IRS yesterdat for $ 2K additional owed for 2012; checked and, yes, another error by his office. So glad I had them done elsewhere this year. In addition, getting a call back from him or his office can take weeks.

Howard and his staff know taxes, plain and simple! They are up to date on current laws. They are thorough and attentive. You get what you pay for but with Tri Valley Tax, you get MORE than what you pay for! Will not go anywhere else!

Last year I had Tri Valley do my taxes. After waiting about 5 weeks my refund still hadn’t arrived so I went to the California franchise tax board website to check on the status. I was surprised to learn that my return had not been submitted. After a couple of calls to the office I finally learned that there was a form that I had not signed. Instead of contacting me to let me know that they needed a signature they just did not submit my return. No email, no phone call, nothing-​of course they cashed the check that is wrote them but did not bother to let me know that I had missed a form. This business is in serious need of a customer service overhaul… read some of the other reviews and it is obvious that they have issues. Stay away.

Please don’t believe in positive postings. You don’t get anything for your money. Like couple of others said, he uses automated software and you will not get any advice from his office. Your appointment with him would last probably 5 – 10 minutes and will charge you arm and leg. His office is closed several weeks after tax season is over and you will never hear any follow-​ups. You will not get any reminders from his office. You need to stay on top of everything.
I have been using Howard for over 10 years. Every year i promised to go to someone else and i ended up going back to him because I am lazy. He will not tell you how much he is going to charge and will give you sticker shock. If I am paying what he is asking for simple taxes like mine, I would expect lot more service than spending 10 minutes. If you are busy like I am, don’t ever bother talking to them. I am looking for some good accountant, please let me know if you know someone.

For more than 15 years now I have trusted Howard and his team to handle my taxes and other financial matters. He helped me set up a corporation when I started my own business and did my business taxes as well. I trust Howard’s expertise as it is very clear that he keeps himself up-​to-​date with all the latest tax laws (which are constantly changing). Others have mentioned his fees going up… I am sorry, but what hasn’t??? The cost of doing business is expensive and for me, when it comes to my finances, I want the guy who knows his stuff and spend the time and money to be well educated in his field. And because he knows how to get every possible deduction, his fees are offset by the money we save paying taxes. For example, there have been tax years where he recommended contributing money to an IRA to reduce our taxable income and save a lot of money. Thanks Howard — keep up the good work!

I have used Howard for my taxes for the last decade, the first time was because I was being audited due to a start-​up I had worked for having its assets sold off and the new owner refiling some of their expenses as my compensation. I had all of the right documentation and handed it off to Howard and he made the issue go away with very little hand holding from my side.
At the same time he reviewed the last few years of taxes I had done and found several things that resulted in me getting a refund for those years.
I have continued to use Howard since then. While his rates have gone up that is true of all professional Tax and Finance advisers — I have recently shopped around and his rates are competitive with others. Also the cost of his services easily pay form themselves, I keep a folder and collect all tax paperwork as it arrives once it is full I drop it in the mail and after signing the service agreement online a few weeks later my taxes are done.
I only give four stars our of five because during tax season it is difficult to get them, its understandable given this is a super busy time of year for them but it is still frustrating.
I am a big fan of Tri-​Valey tax and Howard, they are great and I am glad to know them.

Excellent and fast service! They treated my returns with great respect, and my information with top-​notch security and concern for confidentiality. I will use them again!

The folks at Tri-​Valley Tax, especially Howard and Sheryl, are the absolute best. They are professional, caring, and just wonderful! Howard has been doing my taxes since I was four years old and I wouldn’t even consider going anywhere else. I know that, if I have a question or a problem, Howard and Sheryl will always be there for me. They might not get back to me in 10 minutes or even the same day, especially during tax season, but they always make sure to get back to me as soon as they can.
I also appreciate how dedicated they are to keeping up to date with all the latest in the financial world and will go the extra mile for his clients, including pursuing a mortgage broker’s license and the like just so he can give the best possible information and advice to his clients. I recommend him to anyone and everyone I can!

Due to a «Request to Take Down Defamation on Unilocal», I had to pull my critical review of this business, which should tell you enough of how these people do business…

After trying several different tax programs over the years and trying several tax professional I would never take my taxes anywhere else. They use technology to allow you to upload the documents so that I did not have to make a trip just to drop it off and then to review it. He does the taxes for myself, my kids and my wife’s business and the service is great and the office staff communicates very well. If you are looking for a tax person who will work with you and who understands the tax system I would use him, if you are willing to gamble and have no support if anything comes up go ahead and use the software yourself, just do not complain if you do not get as big as a return or if you get audited. Give them a chance I highly recommend them.

Howard and the whole team at Tri-​valley tax and financial service are completely professional, accurate, friendly, and helpful.
I have used H&R Block and Turbo Tax in the past, but when the IRS sent me additional forms that both of these services missed on my recent tax return, I went to Howard for help. He was completely sympathetic to my situation and scheduled me an appointment in his very busy schedule at the last minute.
Howard found me an additional thousand dollars on my tax refund that the others had missed!
I couldn’t be more happy with my outcome with Tri-​Valley Tax. Howard really wants to help and I won’t trust anyone else with my taxes.
Even if you think your taxes are simple, like I did, there are things that you and your computer tax system can miss. I am really glad that I found Howard and Tri-​Valley Tax.

Honestly everyone can form their own opinions on Tri Valley Tax but I will give you my story. Moved back to California as I was living out of state for a few years and felt like I needed more than «Turbo Tax» to file my taxes correctly. Well needless to say I probably should have taken my chances on my own.
Met Howard seemed like a very knowledgeable financial and tax professional but that is where it ended. After providing both my in state and out of state tax information there was little to no communication back. Every time I called it was «Howard would get back to me» He finally agreed to meet the week of April 7^th to go over my taxes. It was pretty clear that he had not done them and had someone else in his office do them as he didn’t even know simple facts such as when I had moved back to California.
He provided me refunds for both California and my previous state of residence where I question him as to why I would be getting money back as I don’t believe I should. He assured me that I must have made a mistake on my previous return and that in fact I should be getting money back. Well no need to argue with a professional as I must have made a mistake so I file both returns.
I file the returns and both are processed and refunds received. Great all done! Expect the fact that I get audited 9 months later and that I should not have received the refund from out of state. I called Howard and his office states that it’s the states mistake. Not listening to my gut I believe them and figure that worst case I get it work out next tax season. Well that’s not how it works as other states have the ability to put a lien on your home which is exactly what they did.
I did fix the tax error the following season with another tax person and paid it in full but because a lien was put on my home it will stay on my credit report for 7 years. I won’t place full blame on Howard because frankly everyone makes their own choices and I certainly did. However when you pay someone $ 400 to provide a service you would expect it to be correct or at least fix it.
Best of luck if you do business with Tri Valley Tax

Been using Tri Valley for several years but I think their service and quality have declined. They use a totally automated software where the consumer completes 99% of the input and uploads the file so all they have to do is a cursory review, In spite of this they raise their prices a lot every year and charge for schedules the software automatically generates, but the final straw for me resulting in moving my business to another firm was when I needed them to resolve an issue due to an audit they totally dropped the ball with no follow up, emails got ignored which cost me further penalties.
After having another company complete my returns this year it was discovered that numerous errors were made in the previous years returns including indicating that I was blind!

Howard is a no-​nonsense guy when it comes to taxes. He knows his stuff like no one I’ve ever met before. I use him for my personal taxes as well as both my corporations. I have the utmost confidence that he’s squeezing every last penny back into my pocket that’s legally possible.
I have recommended Howard to many of my colleagues, and even keep his cards handy in my office in case someone needs a recommendation.
Thank you Howard!

Way to go Howard! I’ve been using these guys ever since my wife & moved out here 5+ years ago & our returns have been getting more complex & possibly pricey ever since. Howard Hertz, the owner, has been ever so attentive to the most minute aspect of tax filing, law, incorporation & most importantly, deductions. He’s not the type that will tell you to write off every possible expense you have & then pray you won’t get audited but is a realist & has found some very effective ways of keeping our money where it does the most good. In our hands & NOT the Fed. or state government.
They also have a full service financial arm & while we haven’ put a whole bunch of funds there, what we did have didn’t take a bath as some of our other investments did over the past few months.