A Star is Born Notary and Tax Services

Dec 2021

Bad business has me in a hole with irs after doing my taxes was told numbers that I would be getting for my return, now I actually owe those numbers, when I try and inquire as to how this has came to be its no answer/run around, or just not around period. A star is a generous rating of this company.

Jan 2016

Was quoted a price over the phone for an estate tax form, very reasonable so I went. Upon arrival I was told he misunderstood, he thought I said state tax instead of Estate tax and price would be 3x more. Simple 1 page form, no heirs other than me the surviving spouse, very small amount of money involved and no property or other assets. I should have tried to do myself but I wanted to make sure it was done right and was willing to pay for it. Keith completed the form in about 15-20 minutes and I was told that I would owe a few hundred dollars to the state for taxes. I thought I had remembered reading about a "PA widow tax" being zero for a spouse and mentioned it but was told "no you are taxed at a sibling rate", didn't seem right after all I'm the spouse not a sibling but I figured what do I know, he was the tax expert. He assured me he had done many of these and said " You're lucky I've done some estate taxes and they owe 10's of thousands" Had to run to an ATM cause he would only accept cash and I was unprepared since I was quoted a much smaller fee over the phone. Luckily before I mailed in my inheritance tax form and my check for my taxes the following day I did some searching on the web. Found the PA inheritance tax page and low and behold, I was right the surviving spouse tax rate was zero. I looked at the instructions that I gave him with the tax form and it also stated there in the instruction book he used to fill out the tax form, =Surviving Spouse is taxed at zero percent! I called him and told he filled out the taxes wrong and he agreed to meet me at his office. Showed him the web print out from the PA state page and the section in the book that explains the tax should have been zero to a surviving spouse and he now agreed I didn't owe anything. He apologized and redid the form for me but never offered any kind of refund since I just essentially had to correct his tax form. This seemed a glaring mistake to me for a supposed tax expert so I asked him about his credentials- his answer? he has none. His experience? He used to do taxes for HR block. People using H& R Blocks tax software that does all the work while you just pinch in info doesn't make you a "Tax specialist". Had to wonder if those people who "owed 10's of thousands" really did. I did some research and found that unless you are a CPA you don't need any kind of training or certification to do taxes in PA. and unless they are certified they are not on the hook for tax errors you are! Lesson learned.