Bess Kane

She has been my accountant for over ten years, and there is a reason for that. She is very good.

Bad bad bad. Beware. I called this lady to get my taxes situated for my wife who is self-employed and she sent us to a lady named Gloria Lynch to get the situation figured out before taxes. Gloria Lynch is with Let it go inc. the lady she sent us to was supposed to do the books and find us all the tax write-offs we could get. The number she ended up giving us was pretty much what we would have paid without having any tax write-offs and then had the nerve to send us an invoice for over $400 after we had fired her before she finished the job.

We had to hire somebody else and it was nearly a $20,000 difference. I can't believe that she would refer me to somebody so horrible. The Gloria Lynch lady clearly doesn't know what she is doing.

Bess dropped me two days before my business taxes were due because she didn't understand the way I gave her all of my (very simple personal and LLC) paperwork. I had to scramble to find a new accountant, who miraculously with the same exact paperwork, finished in two hours. This accountant never explained how she wants the paperwork in the first place, so I spent hours guessing until the point when she decided it was best for me to use someone else who understands 'my methods'.

Unless you want to give this accountant everything all buttoned up and practically complete for her to send, you may want to consider other options. Don't expect guidance or help, or for her to do any work digitally with Excel. It's all pen and paper then scanned.

Bess Kane has been our tax consultant for many years and has done an absolutely first-rate job as our family accountant and tax strategy advisor. She always provides prompt, expert advice on tax matters and is highly knowledgeable about all aspects of accounting and tax preparation. She is highly efficient and responsive to requests for advice about all types of accounting and tax preparation issues. I am pleased recommend her tax and accounting services at the highest level.

Bess was responsive and open to answering our questions and queries. We have a fairly complex tax arrangement as I have property and savings overseas, but this was handled with no problems. We'll be using Bess again next year.

This year I had M Bess Kane do my taxes. I found her to be very professional and helpful in guiding me through my taxes. With her knowledge and experience she found a number write off's I didn't realize I could take. I recommend her and will go to her next year for my taxes. Thank you M Bess Kane

Bess has been helping us with taxes and advising us on business matters for several years, and I have been very satisfied with Bess' services.

Bess has been doing my business and personal taxes for the past few years. She makes the process easy to understand and answers all my questions. She is pleasant to work with.

I used Ms. Kane's services several years ago. I was a client for a while, but after a few months I moved on. Problems? 1. I wrote her a letter with some material information that I wanted her to consider and discuss with me when I next came in, but when I did come in, she had not opened my envelope, and to explain, she showed me a pile of unopened mail in the corner of her office--maybe 1000 envelopes were unopened.

I wish I had walked out then! 2. Alas, I didn't bail, but when I sent her some information with a few questions about how to structure them for tax purposes, her response was to prepare a complete tax return for my corporation and bill me for it. Why didn't I bail out then? 3. Still hoping, I later sent her a disk with my corporate information on it, with some more questions, and got back a bill for close to $1000, just for "reviewing" it, with no response or advice on the situation.

That was the end of that--I finally learned my lesson and never called her again. BUT THERE'S MORE, as about a year later I got a letter from the IRS wanting to know if I owed her any money, because if so, they were going to put a lien on what I owed her. In other words, she hadn't paid her own taxes and the IRS was going after me and her other clients to collect.

When your accountant is getting tax liens, you know something is wrong! I'm kind of surprised she's still in business, actually. And by the way, you'll see, at the bottom of this Yelp page, an opportunity to look at at least 24 "filtered reviews." If you do, you'll see a whole lot of glowing 5-star reviews, all written within a week or so of the previous negative reviews. Yelp let one 5-star review in, then didn't count any of the others in the overall rating. Hmmmmm, did Yelp suspect something here?

Very unprofessional, defensive, and quick to anger. She went off on me for asking what I thought were very reasonable questions over the phone. Got very agitated and told me I had psychological problems. I hung up, quite shaken, and went elsewhere.

It recently occurred to me that Bess Kane has handled my business and personal taxes for more than 10 years. Bess made what was very stressful for me (taxes) a much less intimidaing process. She is always available to answer my questions and offer her advice and she handles any issues that arise very promptly. I find Bess's extensive knowledge of her field very comforting.

It is invaluable to me that, with Bess, I can concentrate on what I do well (lighting control systems) and be assured that Bess will do what she does well (accounting). I refer friends and colleagues to Bess with absolute confidence that she will provide them the same professionalism and intelligence that she has provided me.

Ms. Kane, perhaps what is more telling about the quality of your services is that your only reviews are those that are not your clients, maybe your accepted clients are not compelled to write positive reviews on your behalf. Sometimes in life you have to learn how to take feedback and effectuate positive change, rather than justify your bad service by sayimg we are clients who were not worthy of your services. It's very childish actually.you can't fire me because I quit! I'm taking my ball and going home. Very similar and Very silly.

In response to Ms. Kane's comment, I did "pull the trigger" and hired Dennis Middleton, CPA (5959 Estates Drive, Oakland, CA 94611) (http://www.dennismiddletoncpa.com/). He actually was more expensive than Ms. Kane's quote, but was exceptionally thorough and professional. You can see his reviews on Yelp (4.5/5 stars among 14 reviewers). Mr. Middleton, along with at least 8 other accountants/tax preparers answered all of my questions (the same questions I sent to Ms. Kane) through my hiring phase.

There was even one accountant, Jeffrey Glick, CPA, located in San Francisco, who stated, "Your list of questions are important ones and should be addressed before you hire a tax professional. I applaud you for doing your research and making sure you hire the best professional to assist you." R. David Marzane, another tax preparer in San Francisco, even thanked me for the questions. Based on my tax needs, Mr. Middleton was the most appropriate and was thus retained. But, I would gladly refer Mr. Glick, Mr. Marzane, others that I spoke with and not Ms. Kane.

I continue to stand by my review of Ms. Kane. She was exceptionally unprofessional and in my opinion lacked the ethical sensitivity and fortitude for this line of work. She stated that her "business is built on trust, which is a 2-way street." Well, frankly, the client is the most vulnerable in this type of transaction. The client has to relinquish all social security numbers and financial information.

The accountant/tax preparer does not have to divulge any of that information to the client. So, there really is no "2-way street". The potential client needs to know who they are hiring before releasing all of this sensitive information. And finally, tax season is the same every year and if you decided to pursue this profession, then don't complain if you are inundated with work during the months leading to April 15th.

Just kindly say, "can I refer you to someone else; I simply don't have the time." With using a little bit of kindness and professionalism, that potential client may actually return with another issue outside of the tax season instead of giving a disparaging review. It is quite well known that accountants/tax preparers are in a feast and famine business; the famine occurring after tax season every year.

That potential client may be just what is needed with respect to staying in the black during those times of famine. Again, I do not recommend Mr. Kane for your accounting needs.