Seriously?

It is the 5th day of October 2014.  I get a phone call from the son of a friend asking if I could possibly prepare his tax return.  Upon further discussion, he told me that he took the personal portion of his tax documents to a tax preparer in late February.  He told the preparer that he would continue to work on his business information and get it to him as soon as possible. It was the middle of March when he delivered the information to the preparer.  The preparer told him that he wouldn't be able to complete his return by April 15th and that he would get an extension.

Excuse me, but I would think that 25-30 days would be quite enough time to prepare a tax return of this type.

To further complicate the issue, the client called the preparer on numerous occasions, after April 15th, to see if the preparer had completed the return.  Each time the preparer gave a patented answer, "I'm working on it."  In early September, the preparer stopped answering the phone calls and would not return voicemails.

I don't know about you other preparers, but I return phone calls, voice mails, and emails regardless of how many times a client calls.  Just because the return is extended, doesn't mean you have to wait until October 15th to complete the return.  If you have the information, complete the  return. That leaves one less thing to worry about and you end up with a happy (well, depends on how much tax they will owe) client.

Seriously...you give the rest of us a bad name!!