Now known as Elstein, Friedman and Silverman. Back in the day, my father, who worked in NY for the accounting department of AT&T and was a whiz at mathematics, would do my taxes for me. He'd breeze through it, and say, "Y'know, Ed, this is easy; you should do it for yourself." And then he'd look at me with more than a bit of reproach in his eyes. Unfortunately, I've always been intimidated by numbers and mathematics, and that was not destined to happen. I always had visions of trying it, screwing up somehow, and ending up in the Al Capone Suite at some Federal prison (although the reality would have been a dank basement cell in the opposite end of the prison, the one reserved for inept, hapless schmucks who "steal" from the government without even knowing it). When my father became elderly and was no longer able to do his taxes for himself (or for me), we started coming here based on the recommendation of another former accountant at the assisted living place where he resided at the time. I initially anticipated that the experience might be an ordeal, but everyone in the office was always kind, gracious and there was never any unnecessary delay. Usually we were in and out in less than an hour. Now I'm coming here by myself, and I've never had a less than stellar experience (a special shout-out to Avi, who handled my taxes the last time I was here). The fee charged is fair. My taxes are handled with skill and dispatch. Any questions I might have are thoroughly addressed and resolved. I always leave feeling I've had a burden lifted off my shoulders, I sleep easily at night without visions of that prison cell polluting my dreams, and I've always gotten a nice refund. I have no hesitancy about recommending them to anyone. read more

Here's my email firing them. Stay very far away! Lenny, I received your email instructing me to pay 15,000 for my 2019 taxes which are due tomorrow. You don't know what I actually owe because you never checked, but you figure to be on the safe side, I should just throw this money at them so you can figure it out at a later time, ONE F*****G DAY BEFORE IT'S DUE!!!!! I contacted you over five months ago telling you that I went through a bad experience with my last accountant who had a habit of first contacting us a day before filings were due to have us rush everything in time. You took me on as a new client and then proceeded to not only do the same exact thing, but because you couldn't find 30 minutes over four months to review my file you also blindsided me with an extra 15,000 while I'm at it. I've been asking you for months to just review what my 2020 liability is so I could be ahead of the game. Now thanks to your incompetence, after almost eight months into 2020, I'm behind 15,000 for 2019. I contacted you three weeks ago and told you how concerned I was. You proceeded to explain that you were too busy due to the pandemic. My response was that you should have told me you were too busy to take on new clients and I would have gone somewhere else. Your response was "If I knew the delay in preparing your return was going to be this long I would have notified you and everyone else in the same situation as you. But it was a daily thing hoping to get them done the next day or two which repeatedly never happened." So your unapologetic idiotic excuse that you didn't warn your clients that they couldn't depend on you is because you kept getting a day or two behind over a 120 day period. This means that you missed your delayed deadline sixty times and didn't think by the forty-eighth time that maybe now is the time to get ahead of this and let the people depending on me know that perhaps they should get a backup plan? After your excuse, which is barely fitting a 12-year-olds excuse for why they didn't finish their school project, I knew you were full of s**t and told my wife this. She said that it wasn't possible because her brother has used you for years and has been happy with your work. I've encountered enough charlatans to know you were one of them immediately. But I figured I'd play this out so at least she'd see for herself that when someone gets called out on their ineptitude and rather than take responsibility, apologize and work to make things right, they just counter with asinine excuses and empty promises, it's time to move on. So instead, I offered to pay your top rate to review my withholding and my state tax liability issue with me and that I only needed at most a couple of hours. You ignored this request and instead promised to get to my file by the end of the week. Now it's almost three weeks later and rather than admit to your failing yet again to follow through on your responsibilities you have the gall to send me an email telling me to layout 15,000 to cover your inadequacy, even though I've told you that I have a 19,000 credit with the IRS. Rather than check this, why not just have me take care of it? You don't even have the presence of mind to call as I would have if I'd royally f****d over a client as you have. I came to you for one reason only, so that I can plan ahead and not worry about surprises. You were reminded of my expectations regularly, and you failed miserably. At this point I'll file my own taxes and still be better off than working with another sorry excuse to your profession. Delete my files, burn any paperwork you have for me and never contact me again. read more