Very similar experience to those listed over the past 2 years. We always had great service / communication from Krisch & Maze before that. But this year the communication was not timely, complete or clear. They also attempted to bill me for an extra charge for an email I sent that wAsnt responded to until after my documents were submitted. I ultimately contacted the President Tim and got another incomplete reply. They have totally lost it and lost my business as well. Stay clear of this firm and for existing clients, ve on people, your time is coming. read more

My husband and I had been working with Maze & Associates now Kirsch & Company for many years for our taxes and they had always done a great job until the accounting side of the firm switched to Kirsch & Company. We submitted all of our information 6 weeks prior to tax day and we hadn't heard any response from our contact until we reached out to him about 5 days before the deadline. He asked us to send all of our information/statements etc. again because he couldn't access them. I called the president of the firm to address my concern now that we had to file an extension because of the firm's incompetency and he didn't return my call. I called back and asked the manager for a discount and she spoke to the firm's President and he said no. My husband and I filed an extension and are now working with another firm. I sent a note to the President of Kirsch to let him know that we were displeased with the way his firm has mismanaged our account this year and how he handed our request for a discount and he responded to my email with this message below. Not only are his facts wrong in how I handled my interaction with the firm, but I can't believe a President of a firm would communicate with a client in this way. It is beyond unprofessional and rude. See email below from him.......... Jeanine. Although I appreciate your loyalty, I don't appreciate your attitude. I get that you were frustrated by the fact that there was a breakdown in communication, but the way you attempted to handle it was unacceptable. My firm is set-up such that our people are authorized to address our clients needs. I know full well that Justin apologized for his error and suggested a means in which to correct it. You chose to ignore it. The required effort to re-upload your files might have taken what, 5 to 10 minutes? You spent more time reiterating your concerns to my office manager, Hiromi, who also apologized for the issues you experienced, instead of simply uploading your tax data. I have been in this business for forty years now and feel I have a pretty good read on people. Someone such as yourself, whom I would classify as self-righteous, needs to elevate simple issues to the perceived top person immediately, instead of working with the system, which normally isn't necessary. I find that a little grace in this world goes a long way. And your quick request for a discount was uncalled for and an ignorant move. You had many options, contrary to your conclusion that you had none. You just chose poorly because you are self-righteous. You state that you "know that this is an extremely busy time of the year for me" but honestly, you don't have a clue of how hard I work and nor how demanding this sector is. Which makes you horribly unqualified to deem me as an owner of this firm as having treated your ignorance and self-righteousness as unprofessional and shameful. read more

We used their services for years after our CPA moved her practice there. This year, we never received our usual worksheet so we called and asked to have it sent to us so we could provide our information to have our taxes done, as we have done every year for many years. We never received the worksheet, and when we emailed our CPA there, received no reply. We were dropped as clients with no explanation. Very unprofessional, to say the least, to leave us in the lurch like that for no reason. read more

My family and I worked with Maze for years with Peter and all had excellent experiences! However, since Peter left last year, the quality of service has dramatically dropped for clients assigned to him. Last year was incredibly frustrating and a ridiculously drawn out process for my very simple tax return. While I understand Peter's departure was an unfortunate and unpredictable change, it would have been much more professional to recognize they bit off more than they could chew and return my forms to me in March/April rather than silently draw out the process for months and months while withholding communication. I had no idea the status of my tax return for most of the year and was receiving inexplicable notices from the IRS. Maze only responded to me to ask for forms they already had, and then wouldn't reply to my responses despite several emails and calls over months. Maze has become unprofessional, unorganized and unresponsive. Thinking back to how I paid $350 for such a horrible experience makes me reel with anger, it's honestly hard to believe. If I had the time I would have taken them to Small Claims Court. I could have done my tax return myself for way less of a headache and way less money. I hope Maze is able to reorganize, reprioritize and get a grip on professionalism this upcoming tax season because their services used to be superb. They are increasing their fees dramatically and charging nontransparent fees as well, I really hope they reel it in. Most of my family and I are totally scarred and are taking our returns elsewhere. read more

If I could rate this company no stars, I would. So this is the first time I've ever used them to do my business taxes, and boy did they fuck up. First off, some dude named Peter who works there, filed our taxes without our permission. He told me he did it on April 17, when he actually did it on April 14th, but regardless without our say so. And on top of that, we gave him all our expenses and everything he would need to complete our return. HE DID NOT ENTER ANY OF THE INFORMATION WE GAVE HIM TO ENTER. After this whole mess, we asked if he'd amend it and file it the way you should, and he didn't even want to do that. I sure hope this company gets there act together, because this is really fucked up. I will never recommend this company to anyone because they only want to do what they want. They don't care how much we owe, they don't even care about their customers it seems like. read more

this is kind of a biased review since i've worked there for 5 years! but after i resigned, i had my taxes done there (i'm a cpa and i was a very good auditor, but horrible at taxation) and the turn around was really good. i also like how the tax packet was organized and there were little reminders of where to send your papers. the staff there is really nice and what i like best about them is that they're helpful throughout the year - not like h&r block which disappears once tax season is over! i've also had the pleasure of having maze do an audit at my place of business. they were very well informed and really organized. they're the "friendly" CPA firm that you almost never hear about! read more

I could not recommend Tim Krisch and Maze & Assoc more highly, and in fact I have referred about 20 of my clients to them -- which says a lot, because of course I need my clients to have a stellar experience. From figuring out the nuances of complicated 1031 exchanges, to step-up basis issues, to bankruptcies, to dissolution of businesses, to self-employed tax returns they are just the all around best. I see that there are some negative reviews but I find them hard to believe -- seems to me from reading them, perhaps the reviewers did not really communicate clearly themselves and express what they need. For example Julie T states that no one ever sat down with her -- well, I have sat down with Tim every single year for my taxes AND several times in between when I just needed advice/consult on a decision I was making (simple example: lease a new car or buy one, which is better for my tax position?) Perhaps you just need to ASK if you want a face-to-face sit down, but I can tell you that happens every year for me and my clients whom I have referred (except during Covid) read more

I am a resident of Belmont, for whom Mark Wong, Maze & Associates is the auditor. I would not recommend Maze & Associates to the Citizens any city recruiting an auditor of its Consolidated Annual Financial Report (C.A.F.R.). Belmont is not averse to the use of non-transparent terminology it its CAFR (and Budget), especially Benefits Stabilization to describe the Fund used to pay for retiree health care. The terminology adopted by Other cities is generally Other Post Employment Benefits (O.P.E. B.) or less frequently Retiree Health. On March 13, 2015 an e-mail was sent to Mr Wong statung: "Belmont General Fund (101), account 8281 is entitled "Benefit Stabilization" averaging almost slightly under $1 million per annum in expenditures. 1. What other clients of Maze & Associates use the term "Benefit Stabilization"? " To date no reply has been received. Nor has a reply been received when the same questioned was again sent to Maze & Associates a month ago via the Chair of Belmont's Audit Committee. read more

We so appreciated the advice and time Rick gave us at no charge for our introductory meeting. We basically sat down to tell him what we needed (help with our slightly complicated tax return) and he was able to not only bring up some credits we hadn't considered before, but knew details about every credit I referred to during our talk. I felt really confident that I was speaking with someone who knew his business and my husband and I couldn't be happier, as when previously speaking with H&R Block associates we had gotten the response "let me look at my book" to questions we had about various credits. read more

I'm the treasurer of a fairly large nonprofit organization. Maze & Associates has done audits for our group (when we were raising a lot of money for a capital project ten years ago) and prepared our non-profit tax forms since then. Their fees are reasonable and they do a good job. They have many nonprofit clients and know what they're doing. This is important, as nonprofits' tax returns (Federal form 990) get posted on the Web for everyone to see, and you don't want any mistakes in there. They need to update their info on the web--you can still find old addresses that aren't right. Don't go to San Miguel Drive in Walnut Creek! read more

I was very impressed with Tim Krisch after our introductory meeting. He reviewed my previous tax return compared to my current W2s and other tax documents and was able to provide valuable insight that will help me save money in coming years. He was so professional and honest and let me know that my tax situation was simple enough to be handled by Turbo Tax as I had done in previous years. I appreciated his time and honesty. read more

I have done,my taxes through Maze and Associates the last three years. We starting using them when they merged with a previous company. The last two years seemed to go ok. This year however will be the last time we use this company for our taxes. They way they do our taxes is we turn in all documents they process them, we pick them up review them and then they are filed. This I really don't care for it seems most good tax accountants will sit down with you and do them right there with you. They also did not look into the best way to file them to get us the most tax advantages. When we got our taxes back I reviewed them and it made more sense to file them married separate. I had sent an email to Tim Krisch inquiring about this. I received no response. I had also sent him an email asking for some insight into what we could do to help us owe less, since we now owe instead of getting a refund. I also received no response to that email. I then called the office to find out what was going on. I spoke with Brent. I asked him to look over the taxes again filing seperate. He did and we then owed less filing that way. He fixed this and said he would mail out our taxes to us. It was over a week we still did not receive them. I called to check and they had never been sent out. In my opinion this has been the worst service I have received from a tax firm. I will also be going back over the last few years taxes make sure we got the most tax advantage the way they were filed. We will not be returning here. read more