We retained Silver Tax Group to assist with our tax debt, costing $7,500. They arranged for 2 separate installment agreements with the IRS, which we began paying and continued for a few months. After about 3-4 months, we received a notice from the IRS that one of the agreements was canceled and we needed to pay the balance in full.
When we contacted Silver tax group, they said they didn't understand why we received the notice and to ignore it and just continue paying the installment, and to send it directly to the IRS agent who processed our case and they would keep posting the payments towards the agreement, that everything was fine. We kept sending the payment in directly to the IRS agent as they instructed yet continued receiving notices that we were going to receive enforcement action. We kept reaching out to Silver Tax group and they continuously emailed back that they did not understand why we were getting such notices, and that they confirmed with the IRS agent that everything was fine. It took several months of back and forth about the matter, and we then received a hand-written note from an IRS agent from the office where we continued sending the payment to, as instructed to do so by Silver Tax Group, with the note telling us to stop sending the payments because we did not have an installment agreement.
When we AGAIN reached out to Silver about the matter they stopped communicating back to us. We called and called and called and finally they said they would look in to the case. After several weeks they contacted us and told us we would need to start over and that we would need to retain them again for another $7,500. Frustrated and not willing to work with them again after months of poor communication, we decided to retain a different service.
As a way to close out our case with Silver Tax Group, they mailed us a hard copy of our file and all of the notes they made regarding our communication. We read through this file and discovered a note in the file where our lawyer stated that they had misfiled a document and that it was going to result in one of our installment agreements being canceled, and that they needed to be prepared for the client to call asking what was going on. This was 3 months before we received the cancelation notice. They knew it was going to happen, and when it did happen they claimed they had no idea why and even confirmed, in writing, that everything was OK and to not worry. And then they wasted our time for months 'trying to figure out what the problem was' only to demand we give them more money to fix a problem they created! When we complained about this, they asked for all of our communications, we emailed them everything and they then sent us a letter canceling their services for us unless we paid them again.
Unfortunately I have learned that with both tax professionals and attorneys one must educate themselves to the level of the person retained with the full help of the professional retained. The definition of retained inherently implies client already has confidence in work to be done. The firm has knowledgeable people working for them, so complacency in easy. Frankly no matter how experienced, professionals make mistakes and it is the clients responsibility to catch those mistakes. It is a shame more business owners and execs fail to employ tax professionals to audit their tax professionals - second opinions are common in the medical field. I too have found local accountants to be some of the best and some of the worst. Large firms the same. No professional should be trusted without verification.
Silver Tax Group Reviews
We retained Silver Tax Group to assist with our tax debt, costing $7,500. They arranged for 2 separate installment agreements with the IRS, which we began paying and continued for a few months. After about 3-4 months, we received a notice from the IRS that one of the agreements was canceled and we needed to pay the balance in full.
When we contacted Silver tax group, they said they didn't understand why we received the notice and to ignore it and just continue paying the installment, and to send it directly to the IRS agent who processed our case and they would keep posting the payments towards the agreement, that everything was fine. We kept sending the payment in directly to the IRS agent as they instructed yet continued receiving notices that we were going to receive enforcement action. We kept reaching out to Silver Tax group and they continuously emailed back that they did not understand why we were getting such notices, and that they confirmed with the IRS agent that everything was fine. It took several months of back and forth about the matter, and we then received a hand-written note from an IRS agent from the office where we continued sending the payment to, as instructed to do so by Silver Tax Group, with the note telling us to stop sending the payments because we did not have an installment agreement.
When we AGAIN reached out to Silver about the matter they stopped communicating back to us. We called and called and called and finally they said they would look in to the case. After several weeks they contacted us and told us we would need to start over and that we would need to retain them again for another $7,500. Frustrated and not willing to work with them again after months of poor communication, we decided to retain a different service.
As a way to close out our case with Silver Tax Group, they mailed us a hard copy of our file and all of the notes they made regarding our communication. We read through this file and discovered a note in the file where our lawyer stated that they had misfiled a document and that it was going to result in one of our installment agreements being canceled, and that they needed to be prepared for the client to call asking what was going on. This was 3 months before we received the cancelation notice. They knew it was going to happen, and when it did happen they claimed they had no idea why and even confirmed, in writing, that everything was OK and to not worry. And then they wasted our time for months 'trying to figure out what the problem was' only to demand we give them more money to fix a problem they created! When we complained about this, they asked for all of our communications, we emailed them everything and they then sent us a letter canceling their services for us unless we paid them again.
Unfortunate - Thank you for sharing Hard Lesson
Unfortunately I have learned that with both tax professionals and attorneys one must educate themselves to the level of the person retained with the full help of the professional retained. The definition of retained inherently implies client already has confidence in work to be done. The firm has knowledgeable people working for them, so complacency in easy. Frankly no matter how experienced, professionals make mistakes and it is the clients responsibility to catch those mistakes. It is a shame more business owners and execs fail to employ tax professionals to audit their tax professionals - second opinions are common in the medical field. I too have found local accountants to be some of the best and some of the worst. Large firms the same. No professional should be trusted without verification.