tax question, page-23

In a past life I was in public practice (don't hold this against me ..lol) and from experience, clients often underestimated the time spent on their tax affairs. For example, people forget about the phone calls to the partner, which usually starts the clock for a minimum of 15 minute units, the Audit of their SMSF, the regulatory returns and so on.

Every employee in an accounting practice has to fill in a timesheet every week, detailing what was done and for which client. This info is then captured into their billing system. At billing time, a report is generated for review by the partner before the actual bill is generated. Very often, the bill will be at, say, 80% of the actual billing time incurred for that client.

My suggestion would be that at this stage you try to keep the relationship with the practice amicable, ask for an itemised billing report, and sit down with the partner to discuss each item in detail where required. You may find that you have actually received quite a bit more service than you thought. If you are still feeling unhappy, then take things further , as required. To say offhand that a $2500 bill for tax returns is excessive without all the facts is difficult. I've seen tax returns that take many man hours of preperation and where the final bill runs into the millions, even though the filling in of the tax return may only take a few hours.

Finally, remember that the quality if the advice you receive differs from accountant to accountant, and that sometimes if a client shows a hesitancy to pay a bill, the level and quality of the advice offered will drop because the accountant will simply be cautious about spending too much time probing for more information and investigating the best outcome for your situation.