Incompetent Accountant.. What To Do...

Bluepenguin

I'd like to reach out and ask if anybody has any suggestions regarding this situation..

We've been encountering numerous problems with our current accountant. He makes serious mistakes, like miscalculating employee T4's, miscalculating income reported on the T4 summary, mispelling our company name in other reports, miscalculating personal taxes, etc... He either forgets or leaves his deliverables to the 11th hour, so that there is not time to check anything, just rush to get it out to Revenue Canada. Is it right for us to assume his work will be correct and we don't need to go through it with a fine tooth comb? Some of these are pretty dumb mistakes, like not adding up 6 numbers correctly...

His answer to everything is "We'll just send it an adjustment.." or "Oh, just put a note next to it".

This is in addition to charging exorbitant amounts for his services...

We're currently being investigated by Revenue Canada regarding the erroreous T4 summary...I suspect there will be some hefty fines involved...We feel that we're basically an audit target because of all these red flags.

We will no longer use his services after this latest fiasco, but I'm wondering if anybody has any suggestions ? Is he liable for anything?

nlgutters

I know with my account he says that if fines are imposed for anything he has done wrong he pays them

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carolinahandyma

You hire tax experts to handle things for you and so you don't have to worry. So I say start looking for a new accountant.

MOTB

You have said more than needs to be said. Time for a new accountant. You should run your business as controlled as possible so that your fees are reasonable and prepared for. My companies have been millions per year in sales and I treated all accounting issue each quarter so that I can just file my taxes and move on. In 22 years I think I may have had a few penalties and they all related to me simply filing something just a little late, but never for me not knowing what I owed. Sometimes it is better to just suck it up and get fresh blood into the business, and in this economy, you can bet they will come running.

Bluepenguin

Thanks guys.. it's very frustrating and I needed to vent. We found a new accountant and checked her references ... I'm very hopeful in her!

Problem is, we now need to clean up this terrible mess he's left us with. Did I mention we've paid over $10,000 in last year's accounting fees? I'm livid... And I agree with the previous comment - yes you do hire an accountant so you don't have to worry! You just need to find one that can ADD...

DavidC

We had a payroll company for 4 years without a hitch, switched to a local guy who had hired us to work on his house and saved a bunch of money on the rates. 2 errors filing our unemployment returns (incorrect rate) and 1 error filing withholding taxes. The penalties dissipated any savings.

What we did was run back to the old company. I'd say time for a change for you too.

Good Luck
Dave

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