Westtax Financial Keith K West promised tax assistance, services paid for, never delivered altadena California

In 2015 I paid Keith West to provide services in regards to personal income taxes. I have been using his business to file personal taxes for upwards of 10 years without problem.  For this issue, it was more involved in regards to back taxes owed.  Keith stated he was experienced in the matter and assured me he was capable of dealing with the issue.  Told me it would take upwards of 1 year to completely resolve the issue. I consulted with him in April of 2015, after tax season closed.

Throughout the course of the following year until 2016, I found it very difficult to reach Keith, he does not return phone calls/faxes/emails. When I did get a hold of him after which involved many many phone calls to his office and even involved driving down from Northern Ca to Southern Ca within days after Christmas 2015 just to speak to him and to settle the matter, very little work had been done, and nowhere near completion of the tax issue.

When I would get a hold of Keith he never apologized for his aweful communication and always had a lame excuse for his behavior. All that Keith did for me was file power of attorney to the IRS so he could speak to them on my behalf. Keith also filed an extension for the 2016 federal income taxes.  That's it.  I paid him to prepare and file an OIC but that was never done.  Keith also gave me bad tax advice as well.

 The IRS always will want one current on their taxes before ever considering an OIC.  Keith told me not to file the 2014 taxes in anticipation for the OIC that was never done.  Even though I had a refund due for the 2014 taxes and thankfully was not incurring a penalty...it was still not in good standing with the IRS.  This was determined after consulting/hiring a tax lawyer whe knows what she is doing. Per her...the issue of being current on one's taxes is considered common knowledge and a no brainer. Aka Taxes 101. Clearly Keith missed that lecture.

All that Keith West and Westtax Financial are good for is simple preparation of your income taxes.  They charge an extra "insurance" fee of $75 if one is audited by the IRS, basically saying that they will handle the audt and that the customer will not have to deal with the IRS.

Even though I have never had to use their "insurance" I can reasonbly say through my own experience with needing extra services from Keith, is that they are and will be unable to deliver on services.  They are a tax mill.  They prepare taxes for folks in Northern and Southern Ca. They line up as many people into the time slots as possible and then some and it is like an assembly line.  Even before my own tax issue, just trying to get ahold of them is very difficult. Don't leave messages for them on their answering machine.  The secretary that answers phone calls is consistently rude....and this same secretary told me that she personally is being groomed to prepare taxes for the company in the future.  Yikes! She will need to go to charm school first.

This company lacks honesty, integrity, basic communication skills, knowledge of proper customer service.  Simply, they don't care nor do they perform anything more than simple tax preparation. They don't keep promises.

I wrote an email to Keith back in May to sever my ties and explain my disappointment and dissatisfaction with this business that I had been a customer with for 10 + years.  No reply at all.  When someone is handling your financial information and social security number, they should be reliable and trustworthy.  I believed Keith could help me and thought that I was a valued customer.  I gave him plenty of opportunities to fullfill his promise to me to help me rectify the tax matter.  He failed miserably.

 Keith West stole money from me that he did not provide a service for.  Now it is to be determined if there was criminal behavior.  I believe he stole from me. Also his poor behavior has incurred me further penalties/interest on the taxes that are still owed based on the amount of time that has passed. This will be followed up to be settled in a court of law.

 Also, for anyone who is needing an OIC filed on their behalf, get a tax lawyer that knows what they are doing. I finally did and an OIC was filed within 6 weeks of establishing a business relationship. It floored me on how fast it was done.  Now I wait to see if it will be accepted. Although the matter is not over, my anxiety level is at its lowest its been in a long time.

If you go with Keith for that or any other involved tax matter, expect to waste a lot of time, experience a major headache and suffer from persistent and extreme anxiety and also expect to lose your money.