Terrible BP referral

[Cara Sherman]

I had my regular (not real estate focused) accountant do my taxes this year and he came back with a huge bill. I was looking last minute for someone who could get me a second opinion and found someone on the BP forum: Jose Garcia Venegas from Pacific Creat Advisors. He took a Quick Look, quoted me $2k to redo my taxes and said he'd thought he could significantly reduce my liability and could get them done in time to file. Great. I sign an engagement agreement and stop looking for someone else. I have to follow up multiple times and finally the morning of the day before the extension deadline, I text saying I'm worried that I haven't seen anything and he says he'll have drafts that evening. I texted back: "They're due tomorrow! If you couldn't do this project comfortably so have preferred you not take it on."  Then at 12:30om he emailed me terminating the engagement. Noon the day before taxes are due! He left me totally in the lurch for finding a second opinion. In my opinion he has no business being on the BP forum or getting clients here. Is there a way to get him taken off? He's totally not a reliable tax pro...

[Michael Plaks]

Quote from @Cara Sherman:

I had my regular (not real estate focused) accountant do my taxes this year and he came back with a huge bill. I was looking last minute for someone who could get me a second opinion and found someone on the BP forum: Jose Garcia Venegas from Pacific Creat Advisors. He took a Quick Look, quoted me $2k to redo my taxes and said he'd thought he could significantly reduce my liability and could get them done in time to file. Great. I sign an engagement agreement and stop looking for someone else. I have to follow up multiple times and finally the morning of the day before the extension deadline, I text saying I'm worried that I haven't seen anything and he says he'll have drafts that evening. I texted back: "They're due tomorrow! If you couldn't do this project comfortably so have preferred you not take it on."  Then at 12:30om he emailed me terminating the engagement. Noon the day before taxes are due! He left me totally in the lurch for finding a second opinion. In my opinion he has no business being on the BP forum or getting clients here. Is there a way to get him taken off? He's totally not a reliable tax pro...

I have no relationship with the person you mentioned, and neither am I a Bigger Pockets employee or admin. Generally speaking, no company will (or should) "cancel" a professional based on a single incident between such a professional and their client. 

Things can go wrong for many reasons, and there're always two sides to every story. Please don't take it personally, I'm not suggesting that you did anything wrong, and I'm not defending my colleague. I don't have all the details to have a valid opinion. I'm simply saying that requesting that this person be removed from BP does not seem reasonable to me.

To record a complaint about someone, there is actually a special forum here on Bigger Pockets:  https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/92

Now, to your specific predicament. It is indeed nearly impossible to get competent help on such a short notice. I recommend that you let your regular accountant file your tax return as it was prepared, because this will minimize your IRS penalties and interest should his result be confirmed as accurate.

Then later on you find one of the real estate tax professionals, there are over 20 of us here on the tax forum, and get a qualified second opinion. If it turns out that your tax return can be redone and improved, then you will file a corrected ("amended") tax return which will override your first return.