Client Review on John Michael Smith CPA

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Mr. wife and I had our taxes done by Mr. Smith when we first moved to Sarasota, and I came to deeply regret that decision. Mr. Smith charged us more than double what any other CPA and ever charged us before or since, including another CPA in Sarasota who also has a JD. When I questioned the charges, he became indignant, but he could not produce ANY documentation showing how he had come up with those charges. He literally appeared to have just made them up out of thin air. I believe that he is unethical, unscrupulous, and I would caution anyone who contemplates doing business with him.Mr. Smith's staff on several occasions requested documents which we told them repeatedly were unnecessary - and which turned out to be unnecessary - then billed us for the conversations and meetings where we delivered or discussed those documents. Since this time was only necessitated by their own errors and incompetence, we should not have been billed for it. These charges related to health care expenses and renovations to our home which were done several years ago and which our then-accountant told us were not deductible. They also asked for info regarded a company my wife had closed several years before. It was obvious to us that these issues were irrelevant, and we told them this, but they charged us a great deal of money to explore them anyway, uselessly. Moreover, even given all of these unjustified charges, the final bill was STILL outrageously and unjustifiably inflated. At one point, his assistant actually admitted, in writing, "Unfortunately, I do not have a format that shows the person who performed the work on the task and their billable hours and resulting dollar amount billed for that time per task." In other words, there is no clear, transparent basis for their billing. This also reflects very poorly on Mr. Smith as a professional. Think twice before you deal professionally with this man.