Silverman Krantz & Porter

A freelance designer friend of mine turned me on to this place when I finally got busy enough to need an accountant again. Robert Krantz is everything you would want an accountant to be. When I go to professionals such as accountants, I automatically get shot back to being a skateboarding teenager talking to cops. Kinda in trouble but not really. After the initial handshake I was completely at ease and knew I came to the right place. I showed up late in the game (like 3 weeks to go) and embarrassed because I lost my last years return in 3 moves in one year. He was studious, professional and really excited talking about numbers and taxes. I needed to get him some additional info so I did what any responsible person would do. I left town for a week. When I felt I wasn’t busy enough I finally got him the info he needed (one week to go) by email which is a huge plus, I am not really a phone, fax person. He got back to me the next day with the good news. I had to pay, but well under what I feared when I checked the tax table myself. He also set me up for the next year so I can stay out of trouble with the man and gave me the great feeling that I have one less thing to worry about in my life because, now, I have an accountant.

RUDE.
SO rude they inspired me to sign up for a Unilocal account and write this review, something I wouldnt normally take the time to do.
I just moved to SF and need an accountant. Dont bother calling them, they will ask a bunch of questions and then tell you they arent taking new clients. Why all the questions… IF I had «simple» taxes, they would have time for me. Well… If I had SIMPLE taxes, I wouldnt need an accountant!

My taxes are not horribly complex, but complex enough that a non-​CPA civilian such as myself would have to spend a good amount of time and effort to try and figure them out. And I’d still probably mess them up. And therefore violate one of the few pieces of advice my sainted Da gave me: Don’t mess with the IRS.
So I gathered the motley pile of forms, receipts, reports, and scribbled notes, and dropped them on Robert, who turned them into a nice, neat return that got me a good chunk of change back from the government. And then he figured out the exact amounts I should be withholding this year, thereby preventing me from giving the guvmint an interest-​free loan. Hurray!
This being a private firm, they’re not as cheap as one of the franchises for sure, but I’d rather pay a little more and know that I’m getting good, solid advice.
And yeah, all the pictures of the Dead in his office are pretty fun to look at while you’re discussing the vagaries of the capitalist system.

Robert Krantz is a Grateful Dead loving CPA, and who wouldn’t love that? I first went to them when I had a bunch of weird tax issues and two states to file in and simply didn’t feel like dealing. Robert met with me, went over all my paperwork and took care of everything. The next year they prepared all my forms in advance and mailed me a package with questions to answer, asked me to attach my W2s and send it in. Easy as pie! I left CA for a while and didn’t make any money (damn you law school) so had no need for a tax prep, but when I came back I went right back to Silverman Krantz and Porter. Not only did Robert remember me, he got everything filed just before the 15^th, and I’d only given him about a week lead time. I think it usually costs me around $ 200 or so, and its money well spent because my taxes are complicated and annoying.
Bonus — they have all these cool financial tools like loan calculators, savings calculators and other things on their website to geek out on.

grumpy and pricey