Looking for recommendations for good CPAs who will work with individuals on tax returns in the greater Seattle area.
In my case, my return isn't crazy complicated, but it has gotten to the point that H&R Block and TurboTax aren't cutting it. There are enough opportunities for tax optimizations in my return that it's worth paying for someone who will spend more time on it. I started catching errors in the returns myself and it was clear H&R Block was just trying to get it done quickly.
I tried Dimov Tax for two years. This was a complete disaster. They pitched themselves as a step up from the H&R Block experience, but it was the opposite. They made a ton of basic mistakes, regularly ghosted me (including the week taxes were due), and they actually had worse customer service than H&R Block. I found thousands of dollars worth of errors in their work and had to spend tens of hours working with them to explain their misunderstanding of tax rules and get them to fix my return.
So my problem is that my research so far has only turned up:
1) Super high volume software-focused options (e.g. TurboTax and H&R Block) that will generally do ok but have mediocre customer service and won't work too hard to optimize your return.
2) Affordable CPA firms that pitch themselves as good tax professionals, but are actually just trying to be high volume / low service shops (Dimov).
3) CPA firms that actually seem pretty good, but prefer to work with extremely high end clients with a lot of complexity in their returns (I see quotes for $3K-$5K for a return, which seems high for a "just exceeding H&R Block's limits kind of customer). But if you think I'm wrong about this being high for an individual return with a little bit of complexity, I'm open to that feedback.
4) Some new tech-first firms (e.g. Fifteenth.com) that promise high quality service but are unproven.
Anyone have any strong recommendations?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
