novacpa wrote:Or you can quote a fee range:
$500 for a well organized and fully documented set of tax returns; or up to $10,000 (payable in advance) for a poorly organized, piecemeal, late, last-minute undocumented tax mess.
Make them pay for the add difficulty they bring to you.
I agree 100% that this is a great way to handle this and it is already in my client service agreement that I can charge by the hour for my time, additional bookkeeping, additional data organization, etc.
I need to start implementing this more often, as appropriate.
Though I would add, "let's make it reasonable" like $350 per hour (I'm in an expensive area).
makbo wrote:
You can't, so stop worrying about it.
The client's tax situation is beyond your capabilities to handle, if they have anything at all complicated with their return.
if you think they are a PITA, doesn't it seem likely they have the same opinion of you?
Outstanding advice, thank you. Your entire response was helpful, but I especially liked these.
Based on these responses, I think I will look not to disengage so much but manage my clients' behavior and my billing "better".
But when a client's work is too complicated, I feel like this is a very reasonable reason to formally disengage.
So helpful - this group is the best - send me your bills.