Complaint / Review
Richardson Associates
Cynthia Younger 5 months late on taxes - which were done drastically wrong. Lied TWICE about filing extensions. Stay very far away

I trusted this accounting firm with the bookkeeping and taxes for my small business.

To be fair, in November of I gave them 11 months worth of business activity to enter into QuickBooks for the first time - it was a lot of work.

I understood at that time that the tax returns for both personal and business would be late. Cynthia said she would file that extension for me, and we agreed that all work - bookkeeping and taxes would be done by late Spring 2010.

In September of I reminded Cynthia that the extension was about to expire and we needed to file another one. She assured me that she would do so.

By the 1st week of November Cynthia had been unreachable for 6 weeks. She refused to return phone calls, e-mail, faxes or accept a certified letter.

I called the IRS to explain the situation and tell them how I planned to recreate my records and get the taxes filed. During this phone call, I learned that the first extension was never filed and that there is no such thing as a second extension.

Cynthia Younger lied to me twice about filing extensions and I was now subject to over $700 in fines as a direct result.

She finally delivered both tax returns in early November - and they were done so badly that I had to engage H&R Block to do them over from scratch.

Cynthia took what was essentially a department of my business and filed a separate tax return for it - under the same tax ID number - subjecting me to an instant $500 minimum tax on that department.

Two tax returns for one business with one tax ID number - and of course, she charged me for preparing the additional return!

And in the process, she failed to properly account for over $30,000 of cash in transit, which created an enormous error in reporting the income for the business.

Cynthia is a nice person who is in WAY over her head. I don't believe that she was malicious in any way, but I believe that she is not competent to handle bookkeeping or tax returns.

Finally, please be careful when evaluating this report - I have found other "Richardson" firms that are accountants and CPAs - this report refers ONLY to Cynthia Richardson of Dorchester, Mass and the firm she owns, Richardson & Associates.