Five Star Tax Services

After straightforward question how much you charge for tax filing Told me one price after working with my papers charged me triple of that price. On top of that very inexperienced. They needed to do some research on stock transactions.

David helped me to file this year’s tax. It’s very efficient. Thanks, will come next year!

This is our second year in a row getting our taxes done by Sothai. She is very friendly, efficient, and professional! I’m very happy with the service she provides.

We have been using Julian to prepare our taxes for the last 5 years. I used to do them myself, but the year that we needed to do small business taxes AND deal with a forced stock sale drove me to look for a professional.
Julian has always been extremely knowledgeable and I’ve felt secure that my tax return will never come back and bite me. That said, he does expect that you know a bit about your own finances and is not going to do 20 questions to find out if there are things you didn’t tell him about. A simple call beforehand and they’ll give you a list of potential things you’d want to look at/​bring, but you are expected to walk in with your docs and ideas in order.

DON’T MISS THIS REVIEW – you’ll be glad you read it!
We moved into the area and needed a new Tax Preparer. We ended up choosing Five Star Tax Services purely based on their wonderful ratings/​reviews on Unilocal.
Our experience was beyond horrible, and worse, extremely prolonged (Aug-​Dec 2015), with the staff not completing our tax returns even after all that they put us through. NEVER have I encountered sheer unprofessionalism to this degree!
When we first chose them, we were assigned to work with Sothai – she was good in the beginning, but I had to repeatedly send her reminders to respond to my emails. We filed an extension in April, and I was to get back to her with additional information to finalize our returns. I contacted her in August with that missing information, ready to move forward. Despite my NUMEROUS emails and voicemails to re-​establish a connection, I didn’t get a single response. I finally found out from the Receptionist that Sothai was out on maternity leave… a simple and courteous «Out of Office» email letting her clients know that, could have saved us a lot of exasperation. What had me perplexed though was that no one else from the office seemed to have picked up after her — her email was unmonitored, and no one was even returning phone calls for messages that were left on the main office voicemail.
I was reassigned to now work with Julian, the owner. A very highly educated man, he simply didn’t have it together and portrayed a very loose work ethic. I had to re-​communicate a lot of the info. that I had already previously provided to Sothai, since he didn’t have access to her emails. I had him assure me he would plug in the missing pieces and send me a .PDF for my review. MANY MORE EMAILS AND VOICEMAILS OVER SEVERAL WEEKS LATER, I found that I simply couldn’t get a response out of him either… not a courtesy phone call or return email to say that he needed more time… absolutely no communication on his part at all!!!
I dropped in to their office unannounced and called him out on his shoddy service in front of his staff. After that, I yet offered him the opportunity to make good, in lieu of the immense time that we had both put in to get as far as we had. He seemed least interested in retaining my business, but said he’d have a .PDF for my review over to me soon. Sothai was back from her maternity leave by then. I ended up being turned back over to her and had to again provide her with the missing links I had sent over to Julian in her absence. A whole lot of work, effort and time later, I finally received a .PDF from her for my review. However, it contained several errors that caused us to owe $ 78 to the IRS, and when we set about fixing those errors over the phone, it turned out that we were on the contrary owed $ 3,000+ by the IRS… HUGE DIFFERENCE and gross negligence on their parts!!! There were 2 – 3 more gray areas that Sothai was to research for us, so that we could plug the information in and finalize our returns. However, she disappeared on me yet again, this time, never to surface. I sent her SEVERAL emails and left her many voicemails, offering her NUMEROUS opportunities to wrap this up for us and get paid for the time she had put in, but both, Sothai and Julian remained completely unresponsive to my emails and phone calls, despite my finally alerting them that I would take my business elsewhere if I didn’t hear back from them.
Despite having so much to say about how terribly they have behaved with us, I’m at a loss for words to describe how stunned I am that businesses like this are actually out there, believing they will continue to thrive. I don’t carve out the time to do reviews unless the business is worthy OR unworthy to an extreme… the owner and employees of Five Star Tax Services are highly unprofessional and unworthy of anyone’s business. I wanted to warn those of you who are reading this to think twice before using them. Choose someone else, while you still can.

Sothai is great and quick!
Went there earlier today to get my taxes done and she finished it in about 15 minutes or less. We chatted a bit and she was patient enough to explain and answer all the questions I had.
I will definitely return and recommend all my friends here!

I went there under a recommendation, big mistake. They don’t give a sense that they care. I plan on going back to doing my taxes online. FREE​TAXUSA​.COM

Look no further, this more than lives up to its name. Sothai was so personable and patient and got us a great result. We have recently moved here from Australia and this was our first time filing in California. The differences in the systems in the two countries are vast but Sothai patiently looked at every possible deduction all the while explaining them to us. Thank you we will be back next year.

Julien assisted me with my taxes, and did a great and expedited income tax return for me. He got me more back than I would have expected, didn’t rush me through. I went here because of all the great Unilocal reviews and here I am, adding my own, now.
Pro tip: As I’m writing this, Google Maps instructed me to the wrong place. The address is 553, so it’s on the side of the road with all odd numbers, not the shopping centers across the street. As of now, the office is right next to a locksmith, in a predominately grey building.

Awesome place. Ask for Sothai.

Very fast and cheaper than other tax prepares. Will come back next year to do our taxes.

This was the first year I looked for a tax specialist since my taxes were getting more complicated and I’m too lazy to read up about everything myself. Naturally, I looked for tax agents that are rated five star on Unilocal and found a few of them. They quoted prices that were quite high and were unavailable to meet until after a couple weeks.
As part of their advertising, this tax service actually sent me some mail that highlighted some of the tax savings they could help me with in my situation. I was a bit hesitant since there’s not that many reviews, but I decided to give it a go since it had 3 five-​star ratings (out of 3 ratings) and the letter looked professional. This ended up being a great choice.
Despite the lack of reviews, they’ve been around since the late 80’s and have only now started to develop an online presence. As soon as I sat down with Sothai with all of my tax documents she went through them quickly while describing the deductions I’m getting and talking about other possible savings. She said that I was missing some info on stock transactions and she let me use her computer to look for them and print them out. It took me a long time to find the right doc but she was patient and described exactly what she needed. We went through everything again in the end and she explained all of the taxes and savings I was getting.
All-​in-​all, she helped me tackle my taxes on several fronts in a concise manner. She charged me a very reasonable rate. I will definitely return next year.

This review is based on my experience with Sothai.
After moving into this neighborhood recently, I’ve decided to try a new tax service and managed to find this place through Unilocal.I’ve luckily got to come in the same day I’ve called into schedule (it was also a saturday!), which is pretty sweet since most other providers were booked at least 2+ weeks or either not accepting new clients period. Anyways, I’ve went in and met Sothai, who not only provided a fast, efficient service, but also gave crystal clear answers to whatever question I’ve had. I look forward to handing over my taxes to Sothai next year as well.
Oh yeah btw, charge was $ 60, which makes way more sense than the $ 100 charge I was paying back over to Tory from Tax Goddess for the same exact amount of work, not to mention all the lack of professionalism going on back there.
Five Stars and Thumbs up

I have been using Five Star’s services for 6 years. Sothai has prepared my taxes every year and she is the best at discerning useful strategies to reduce your tax burden. She has saved me from expensive penalties and also highlighted some expenses that I could use as deductions. Five star fees are very reasonable and the staff is courteous and respectful. Sothai and Five Star has earned my trust and I will be back again next year for tax services.

Searching for the right tax preparer is not easy, how do you trust someone you do not know with your confidential information? Well, we were extremely lucky to have found Sothai with Five Star. My family have been going to her for several years now and we could not be happier! I have to say that the most important thing that impressed me from the very beginning was her extensive knowledge on tax. She explained every detail of my tax refunds. I was extremely satisfied with the service. I had her e-​file my refunds and received the fund through direct deposit a week after.
The price for the service was very reasonable.
Thank you for always doing more for less!
I highly recommend this place.

I received such a friendly customer service from the office manager, Sothai (she’s not from Thailand BTW!). I’ve been doing my taxes with Turbo Tax, but I decided to come here since my income became more complex.
Sothai was very professional and informative with all of my questions and concerns.
She looked at my income and expenses from various angles and made sure that I got the most refunds possible.
I didn’t know that some of the expenses are tax-​deductible.
I learned so much and saved hundreds thanks to her.
The amount of money I saved was much more than the service fees, so it pays for itself! Yey!
Now, I owe Sothai a big cup of joe! I will be back again next year for sure! Totally 5 stars!