Marina Wyss
I cannot recommend RHA. I had two poor experiences with two different accountants for very different reasons. I have a high W2 income and a new business that I started this year. My goal was to meet with someone to learn about ways I could reduce my tax burden, so I wanted to talk to an expert to discuss strategy. My first strategy call was with a very kind accountant, Mariana. She provided an estimate of my expected taxes due if we didn't look for any additional things I could potentially write off. I probed as much as possible to get ideas and suggestions, but I really didn't get anywhere. Ultimately I paid $800 to have someone estimate my taxes due and tell me I could email to ask if I could write something off, which didn't sit right since I could have done the estimate myself for free, and I was looking for more proactive advice. I had a pleasant discussion with this accountant, so I was unsure if I should complain, but the price was steep so I did ultimately pass on the feedback. They graciously connected me to a different accountant, Nicole. This is where things went especially poorly. Right away on out first call, Nicole was defensive and seemed frustrated that I had questions. The main point of misalignedment was her insistence on converting my disregarded LLC to an S Corp. The common knowledge on this is that if you have high W2 income, converting to an S Corp doesn't make sense. But of course I came to an expert for advice, so I asked if we could break this down during our strategy call. On the actual call, she seemed very offended that I would question this advice, and when I asked for explanations, she was unable to give simple reasoning. I recognize that I am new, but in my mind the mark of an expert is someone who can slow down and explain things simply. I asked us to mock up scenarios, and she responded that it wasn't her job to teach me. My understanding was that the point of a strategy call was exactly this, to mock up different scenarios, but I guess not at RHA. Throughout the call, anytime I had a clarification or question she reacted defensively. She has incorrectly estimated my husband's income, which I realized was logical since his most recent pay stub had a bonus, but when I pointed out that she was off by $100k she insisted she was correct, was short with me, and acted annoyed that I would question her. This is one of many examples from the call. I left feeling emotionally bad on a personal level in a way I wouldn't have believed an accountant could do prior to this. Honestly I have rarely had such bad interactions with people. Despite my poor experience, I have empathy for whatever it is Nicole may be going through. On a positive note, I had a great call with their bookkeeping team, and they were proactive about offering me a refund after this poor experience.
