Business ProfileforTodd's Tax Powered by Alvini & Associates

I am ending a relationship of over 20 years with Alvini. In the last 2 years they have increased my fees over 100% while taking away 100% of face time with customers while doing taxes. Not only have my fees more than doubled, I have brothers, sister and mom as clients and my fees are more than double mine but I cannot get an explanation as to why.

To clarify- this gentleman has a relationship of one year with our firm. We acquired a firm of which he was a client for 19 years. I will address each point below, even though the majority of his questions have already been addressed several times by my staff: 1- The firm that we acquired had a fee structure that was extremely below current market value. Clients of the former firm were advised that fees would be increasing to bring them up to market value over time. We capped these fee increases dramatically in year one to prevent shock amongst the client base. Despite our fee increases, this gentleman's fee remains at or even below fair market value. 2- We sent out a firm wide email in January explaining to all clients our procedures for several types of clients. This gentleman's receipt of this email is confirmed by the fact that he replied to it in his complaint to our staff. This gentleman fit a particular type of client that was advised in advance in the email that there would only be a face to face meeting if a tax planning opportunity was spotted, as our engagement was limited to tax preparation. Other types of clients do receive face to face meetings, particularly if they engage us in the areas of tax or financial planning. Despite knowing this information in advance, this gentleman chose to engage us for tax prep, then complained after the fact about not receiving something he was fully aware he wasn't entitled to going into the transaction. 3- This gentleman has bombarded us with requests over the past 90 days requesting information on other clients (the family members mentioned above) and requesting an explanation why his fees are higher than his associates. We operate in an industry where privacy is the rule, and do not discuss other clients with anyone outside of our company. While we cannot comment on the fees of other clients (who may or may not fit another qualification of customer referenced in our preseason email), I can re-iterate that the fees charged for this engagement were well in line with industry standards. 4- We have no hard feelings toward this client. We believe unfortunately that he is simply the victim of circumstances out of his control. He had a great relationship with his former CPA who provided a service level that was clearly well above and beyond what the client's fee dictated. We give our compliments to the prior CPA, but our business model does not allow us to operate in the fashion that he did and unfortunately I believe this gentleman feels entitled to the treatment he received from that CPA. As I mentioned earlier, he was advised in advance of the engagement of both price increases and the lack of face time for clients only engaging our firm in tax prep services who aren't utilizing our planning service.