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March 2023 by J D.
I've been a customer of Bret's for over 10 years. He always does an excellent job and his work ethic is impeccable. He is very knowledgeable and more importantly, trustworthy. I wouldn't go to anyone else! Thank you Bret & Team! -JH
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January 2023 by Shannon C.
Bret is amazing. He's so quick, communicative, friendly & easy to work with. I definitely recommend him. Thanks again for getting my taxes done with ease!
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January 2023 by J. W. B.
I called this morning needing only my personal income taxes done. They refused. They are not taking new clients. I asked for a referral and was only told that the firm they would recommend is not taking on new clients either. If the firm is so busy that they can't bother to even provide a referral, I can't imagine they can provide meaningful service even to their existing clients. Stay far far away from this unprofessional firm!
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September 2022 by Twyla Y.
Previous experience with Bret was great but for the last two years, he needed to file lengthy extensions---going on six months presently with no explanation. My return is not terribly complex. I don't know what the problem is.
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August 2022 by Eric M.
I'm not sure what the guy below who gave one star did wrong but I'm sure it was not Bret just ignoring a paying respectful customer. Bret has always been responsive and professional with my taxes and account so that's why I say it must be the customer. All the good reviews here are valid. Do your part and Bret will help as much as he can. What else can you ask? Thx Team for helping me through my amendment and payments in addition to my regular filing.
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August 2020 by David F.
7 1/2months, 7 scheduled appointments, 10 minutes before each appointment, an "emergency" came up. Direct referral from an attorney, when I cc'd my attorney on the email thread asking what was going on, he insisted on telling me it doesn't pertain to them and kept removing them. Just bad form. I'm sure he's a decent guy, probably a decent CPA, but I was referred to him from a mutual contact had he just wasn't able to actually get around to working together because he kept rescheduling our appointment. Became snarky when I asked him about it - We're all busy, so if I'm going to respect your schedule and you keep asking me to reschedule, I'll do that but at some point you after to figure I'm going to say something. When someone doesn't want want they're doing being public, they're embarrassed. First emailJan 9, 2020, 10:53 PMto Carolina, BretCarolina, Thank you for the introduction. Bret, please let me know your availability to hop on a call or meet in person. Last email with him saying it doesn't pertain to our mutual acquaintance on 8/7DAVID 11:20 AM (7 minutes ago)to Carolina, BretIt does involve Carolina because it's bad form and I have other business that has been delayed directly related to this matter.
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May 2020 by Kraymer L.
My wife and I have had Bret do our taxes for 3 years now and he is just incredible. He's on top of all the changes that happen each year and explains them clearly enough that even I understand what's going on. Every time I have a question he is quick to get back to me and always follows up.
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April 2020 by Kelsi J.
My husband got referred to Brett by a close friend saying he has a lot of clients that use him for taxes. I would never recommend his services UNLESS you literally don't care to about communication or getting things done in a decent timely manner. What should have taken a couple weeks (max) took what felt like eternity. Want to try and get a hold of Brett to see what his eta is on your taxes? Good luck. I would say out of our follow up emails we would we would get a response half of the time. Call the office and leave a voicemail... zero call back. I don't have an issue if things take longer due to being busy, I get that. But when you're paying someone for services and they simply just don't get back to you, that's when I have a major problem. Not to mention, after a month of Brett having our tax info... one of his responses back to our follow up email was "what is you and yours wife's DOB?" Along with a bunch of other basic questions.. which tells me he has just started our taxes. Then when we sent another email, he literally asked for our DOB's again. I was speechless. With how long it took him you would think we own multiple houses, invest millions of dollars, and have a massive company with multiple employees... not the case at all. I never leave yelp reviews, good or bad, cause I simply don't want my name out there. But this whole experience was an absolute nightmare for my husband and myself. It's very unfortunate we will not be using him in the future as he is local.
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July 2019 by Scott I.
Bret is very knowledgeable and friendly. Took his time going over our taxes and didn't feel rushed. Found some mistakes on our previous returns which he's fixing for a reasonable price. He's also going to sit down with us soon and go over some financial planning. So happy we found him!
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June 2019 by Katie Orona
At the end of the day it all comes down to customer service. Brett and his team have been great. My husband and I have been treated well and with respect. During their busiest time we were able to recieve special attention from Brett concerning a letter we recieved a few weeks after preparing our taxes from the IRS. Natalie (their receptionist) handles high pressure situations well and is very personable. I am not the kindest person when upset, so I appreciate the extra care taken in my situation. Will definitely be using them in the future and recommending them to friends and family.
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April 2019 by David K.
Bret has been taking care of our taxes for 7 years now. Our friend referred us to him and we've never looked back. Especially after years of bouncing around from one accountant to the next. Thank you Bret!!!
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April 2019 by Charlie Y.
Bret is so good to us, we are very thankful to have met him years ago when we found him on Yelp, after moving to Cypress. I see some negative reviews complaining about him not doing bookkeeping, however, he charges much less than at least 5 other places that were also highly rated on Yelp in the Cypress/Los Alamitos area. I hope it stays that way, because I come to Bret with my bookkeeping completed, and have him help me put it all in. He's really knowledgeable, friendly, and a likable guy. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to friends and family.
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March 2019 by Matt S.
Bret was very fast to respond and was willing to work with our difficult situation. Thankfully while he runs his own business, he has a plethora of Family/Colleague advice for all types of scenarios. Bret was kind and willing to walk us through our tax return to ensure we understood the process in its entirety. My wife and I are planning on returning each and every year to Bret!
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February 2019 by M B.
I was excited to work with Bret based on the sentiment you see on this page (it's rare to see so many five-star reviews), but my experience didn't quite align with the majority here. I have a complicated, time-sensitive situation this year and following our initial meeting, Bret gave me assurance that he'd be able to help out and I left with a sense of relief. He didn't provide any kind of disclaimer that his ability to assist would be dampened by the fact that it's busy season for him. There are several aspects of his service offering that I wish I had known before deciding to take time off from work to get the ball rolling with him: 1) Minimal preparation. When you send documentation to Bret, don't expect him to review it beforehand. Your time in-person will be spent waiting for him to parse the documentation as he asks questions that have answers in the documentation. I believe a better utilization of time would be to initially review the docs - at least a once-over - to inform a more pointed, purposeful conversation. A little bit of preparation goes a long way. 2) Lack of follow-through. I emailed Bret about a time-sensitive issue over the weekend and did not expect a response until Monday at the earliest. I called his office on Monday to make sure my message wasn't lost, and to reiterate the fact that I have a time-sensitive issue to touch base about. Their office assured me that I would hear from Bret by COB. I didn't hear from him until sending another email later that evening. It's cool if you can't respond same-day; it's not cool to be given assurances that you can't follow through on. 3) "I don't do bookkeeping". This is a direct quote. If you have a bunch of expenses that you're not sure how to itemize or deduct, don't have high expectations. He seems to be very particular about the type of work he takes on, and anything beyond this limited scope is met with resistance. My expectation was that given a bank statement, we could work through the items to determine what the deductible items were. This did not align with his interests, and I've been told that this is outrageous by multiple alternative tax professionals. 4) Excuses. After notifying Bret that I had decided to seek services elsewhere and politely outlining the reasons in the name of constructive criticism, he took time to offer justifications but not a single acknowledgement or apology. Here are some quotes: "it is difficult to spend sufficient time during tax season needed to give you my 100% effort", "I personally have no desire to offer bookkeeping services", "I would love to help you out with this and your 2018 return but I would not be able to give you the attention needed during tax season." Again, this was AFTER I communicated that I would be terminating our relationship. I responded: "To be completely honest, sometimes an apology is much more meaningful than a justification. I feel as though my time has been wasted and if you weren't capable of giving me your 100%, I would have preferred to have been told that instead of discovering it through an unpleasant experience." To this, he responded: "I'm very sorry that you feel as though your time was wasted [...]" There's a very, very big difference between "I'm sorry I messed up", and "I'm sorry you feel that way". It's likely that the combination of it being busy season and the complexity of my situation caused a perfect storm here, but I would be bummed out if I had to experience this kind time/money sink again and want to spare those of you with abnormal circumstances the pain of an unpleasant surprise.
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February 2019 by Gabby E.
This is the first year I came to see Bret and he is amazing. He explained everything and answered all my questions from beginning to end. I'm so happy I finally found my tax guy! I highly recommend him!
