Business ProfileforMaloney + Novotny LLC

I have been a client of Bollenback and Forret PA located on 1000 Pinellas Street, Clearwater, Florida 33756 since 2017 after I was referred to them by an existing client. This practice was bought over by Maloney and Novotny LLC in the last year or so after the original owner passed away. I was originally upset by the fact that no one at the office mentioned to me that my accountant had died. I did not find out until I reached out and asked to speak with my accountant about something regarding my taxes. Then, the individual who took over taking care of my taxes, reassured me that nothing had changed with the change of ownership. Kris Kaufman suggested that I come in one day to discuss my and my husband’s taxes so I can be reassured that customer service has not changed after Mike Bollenback passed away. I took up this suggestion and met with Kris. I came to find out after the fact that I would be charged for this visit when in the past, every time I met with Mike, I was never charged for a visit. Had I known I would have been charged for this, my husband and I would have continued our conversation with the firm via email. When my husband and I received our tax return, we saw that we were charged, together, over $2000 for services. I have never spent this much on personal taxes. I have always been charged a flat fee of $400 but somehow this year it took over 8 hours to file our taxes and cost us 5 times the amount I usually pay. So much for things being the same. There was NO indication that I would be charged this much for filing personal taxes and no indication that I would be charged for something as simple as separating and scanning paperwork. This is predatory billing. It is concerning that they tried to tell me they gave me a discount and that I still owed over $2,000 in costs for filing my taxes. We have sent them emails asking for answers and instead are given no answers to our questions. I will not pay over $2,000 to file personal taxes. That is ridiculous.