I am thrilled with Budd Bay Accountants' Gary Merz and his staff. I used to hate tax season and procrastinated to avoid the headache of filing them. Now, I just gather up my documents and provided them to Budd Bay and in no time I have an accurate, professional return without all the headaches. Their office is very welcoming and fun to visit when Henri the bulldog is on duty. Friendliness comes with their professionalism. I really appreciated Gary's patience dealing with my ignorance of tax codes. I appreciated his willingness to answer all my questions and provide suggestions to reduce my tax liabilities. I am "technology challenged". The staff at Budd Bay patiently walked me through the proper steps without judgment. I would like to thank them for making tax season headache free. read more

Budd Bay CPA has been doing my taxes for many years, and always do a good job. I am an Independent Contractor, operating as a S-Corp, and Gary has always been honest and forthcoming, all the while making sure I am paying only what is fairly my responsibility. Having a business makes my taxes a bit more complicated with the need to file businesses AND personal taxes. I've learned a lot about taxes and bookkeeping over the years from working with BBA. I have followed Gary from a previous firm because he's, well, that good. I would highly recommend to anyone looking for fair and informed Accountant. read more

My wife and I have used Gary's expertise to do our taxes since we moved to Olympia over 10 years ago. He handled our paperwork professionally and in a timely manor. Gary and his staff is friendly and answered all of our questions. We are very pleased with his tax service and are using him again this spring. We highly recommend him to everyone here in the South Sound. read more

Do NOT bring your tax returns to this company. Gery Mertz is the CPA and owner. He did my Mother's returns as well as her estate returns. He submitted her 2019 returns and the extension filing under the wrong social security number. He filed the extension for her taxes without estimating the amount owed so that we could pay this on the due date. We thus incurred a $3,500 penalty. When I called him to get this fixed he escalated the conversation to a shouting match and told me it was my problem to figure it out and slammed the phone in my ear. I now have to hire a Competent to straighten all this out. This was added stress in addition to dealing with my Mother's death. read more

I'm sure Gary did my taxes correctly and legally but the reason for the 2 stars is that he is not approachable or easy to talk to. His original estimate of what I would owe in taxes was over by a couple thousand dollars which was shocking and I felt flustered and confused. Then I felt embarrassed and stupid when I asked for more information and left the office in tears. Overall a pretty terrible experience and I wish I would have just gone to H and R Block or somewhere else where they probably focus more on customer service and people skills. read more

Whether you are super organized like my husband, or, well, not, like I am... Gary is the man for you. When I showed up with my shoebox full of receipts and other random papers, he was patient and didn't judge. He advised me on how to get it all in order on my own and come back, but also let me know that I could book his time for help with it. I found his prices to be reasonable, and his hours and office staff very accommodating. read more

This location is closed they have moved to Lacey, WA on Pacific Ave. I am wanting to let anyone know that may be looking for a tax advisor my experience. I have used this office for the last few years after Tom retired whom I had the pleasure of dealing with for over 10 years. At that time it was called something else like Tax Center or something. After Gary took over this office I have had very high rates of tax payments, unknown at this time if my past years are correct or not but my 2018 taxes were so high ($10k) that I took them to my sister in law who is a CPA and my financial advisor to have them double checked. They found missing taxes that I paid but were never added as a deduction and an IRA contribution that we had taken. They added our contribution amount that had already been taxed as a premature withdrawal causing us to pay penalties and getting double taxed. After bringing this to there attention, they apologized and fixed the rental taxes and took away the penalty but still state that the $18k IRA had to be added to my income because they can't get there computer software to accept it. I was treated rudely by Gary and Susan after expecting them to honor time commitments they set up and broke and am still waiting for my amended return amount of which is supposed to be close to $4,400. Im sorry but mistakenly making your client pay close to $6k more than they owe I feel like they should be ashamed. My other tax advisors that I spoke with say the sound incompetent and and beginning tax advisor should know how to handle my basic IRA Distributions and at the very least ask questions about what they were for. I hate writing reviews this is only the second one I have ever written but this company has no right doing anybodies taxes read more