Business ProfileforSmith & Smith, CPA's, LLC

On January 24th I received an email from this company requesting that I sign a 'letter of engagement' for their service's price to be increased from ****** per hour to ****** per hour.The work they performed for me for doing the books and taxes for the 2023 year was at the ****** hr. rate as this is what I had signed and understood my charges to be. I chose not to sign their letter of engagement for the 2024 yr at ****** per hour as I did not agree to the higher rate. They had given themselves a raise progressively over the last 4 years from ***** per hour to ****** per hour(100% double).Since I did not sign and agree to ****** per hour, I will not pay ****** per hour.They are billing me at that rate and expecting me to pay it.They are also charging me for a Quickbooks subscription at ***** per month for the month of January when I had already ended my services with them and did not utilize the subscription at all until May 2024 when I was signed on with another CPA.I was told it would be turned over to me, but never was.These business practices of giving themselves a raise and charging their customers at the higher rate BEFORE they sign the engagement letter and BEFORE they agree to pay the higher hourly rate is UNETHICAL. The timing in which they do is also UNETHICAL as they increase their own pay at the beginning of the year when their customers need to have their taxes processed for the previous year.It's just WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. If you are going to charge me a higher rate as your customer, the ethical thing to do is to ensure that I AGREE to that higher rate BEFORE you do the work, or choose to bill me at that higher rate.Each time this company has done this, I've only continued business with them because I had no other choice.There are several letters that I've written them in regards to these shady business practices. Please request those letters.I felt FORCED to stay with them only because they were familiar with my books and ************ needed to be done.It's bad business when a customer feels that way!