Client goes MIA: what would you do

I contacted a client this month for whom I filed an extension. Left (2) vm and sent 2 emails, one in June. I never received an email or a call back.

This client gave me tax info on Saturday, May 15th, late. I emailed back that I didn't work on Saturday eve or Sundays and we had to file for an extension because the tax info was received so late. He may not have been happy with that but all seemed fine during our phone call on the due date of Monday, 5/17, itself.

I met with a friend of this client who is also a client. This person brought up his friend out of the blue during the tax interview and said something to the tune of "I don't know if x is easy to work with". In hindsight, I should have asked what he meant with that... but didn't.

To stop spending my energy on this, I thought of calling this friend of the MIA client and saying something like that I haven't heard from Mr. MIA, I usually wouldn't call about this but I'm a bit concerned because he's usually responsive, do you maybe know if he's on vacation ... The last time I spoke with the friend of Mr MIA was about 2 weeks ago when he referred someone else to me.

In general, I never talk about a client with another client. And this is my hesitation about a phone call to the friend of Mr. MIA. Let me know what you would do in this case.

We're not up against a deadline yet, so I would hold off on contacting the friend for now.
I typically like to use the perceived threat of penalty and interest (financial pain) to compel a response from unresponsive clients.
You could also try to check their FB or IG to see if they are posting pictures from a far off land.

My guess is they are a procrastinator, which is why you got the information on May 15th, and you likely won't hear from them until the deadline commands their attention.
Probably best to wrap up and get rid of this client to save yourself future aggravation.

Also, I just heard from a client that went MIA for 4-5 months, he ended up in one hospital and being airlifted to another, sepsis, etc. Currently needing kidney and liver transplant. These things happen. Let it ride for now.

Subject: IMPORTANT -- PLEASE READ

Hello Client,

I hope all is well. I tried calling earlier today (Monday, XX/XX/XXXX) but was unable to reach you. Please note that our office has not received supporting information necessary for the preparation of your income tax returns for tax year 2020 after multiple requests and attempts to follow up (phone calls and emails sent on XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX). Accordingly, if you would like to move forward with income tax preparation for tax year 2020, please provide the requested information/documents prior to 5:00PM PST on Friday, XX/XX/XXXX.

If all of the requested information/documents is/are not received prior to the above-mentioned time and date, then we will unfortunately be unable to move forward with the preparation or filing of your income tax returns for tax year 2020. As a result, no income tax returns will be filed on your behalf. Furthermore, given that the preparation of your income tax returns is substantially complete, no refund will be issued for your deposit of $XXX.XX.

If you get no response by the indicated time and date, send a disengagement email and move on.

Consider sending a certified letter to the address of residence after a few more follow up attempts.

I agree with Alex that you should set an internal deadline and probably disengage if there's no contact by that time. I wouldn't want to have the guy show back up on the radar in the week leading up to October 15th...

I wouldn't ask the other client about this one just yet. I'd probably set a hard cutoff date of Sep 15th and if I still hadn't heard from him by Sep 1st, I'd reach out to the other client and frame it that I am concerned and wanted to know if he knows anything.

Thank you all for the good advise which I will follow in the future.

For this client I won't have to. Guess what happened, within an hour of posting this, I received an email from Mr. MIA, apologising for not responding due to a busy schedule and asking for a time to set up a meeting.

Have you got a retainer from this client? I would not do anything until I am reasonably assured that this wont happen again and I will get paid!

Yes, we ask for a retainer when an extension is filed.

I would:

1) I would certainly NOT(!) contact the friend. It's a privacy issue.

2) I would call and send an R mail (registered email) asking him if we are still engaged, and if not, to please let me know so I can stop bothering him about it.

I would also include a cut-off date to receive all information - usually 6 weeks prior to the deadline.

I would also include a suggestion to file as soon as practical - because if the estimate is not correct, late fees increase with each month (but I would have mentioned all of this when I delivered the extension).

3) I would go through the process of calling and sending registered email 3 times, one week apart and keep documentation of the attempts.

4) Go surfing.

Most clients will reach out to you if they decided to go to another tax professional. Many times if you do not hear from a client it could indicate that the person is very ill or maybe passed away.

IME, clients only reach out to me when they forget to bring their previous year's tax return and expect me to do that for them.

IME, clients only reach out to me when they forget to bring their previous year's tax return and expect me to do that for them.

This, and/or because they need a depreciation schedule, which was in their tax return copy anyway

I think we all need to have a documented procedure to deal with MIA clients. I have established a call log for calls made to the last known phone # and I will send only one certified letter to the last known address. Then I am done! If they sue me I have my proof of making reasonable attempts to contact them.

I am NOT calling friends and family (unless there is an exception, like sickness or death that I became aware of).

If they sue me I have my proof of making reasonable attempts to contact them.

Thanks. As mentioned before, my MIA client issue has been resolved. Client was too busy to respond but did last week. Always get paid upfront, at the minimum for the fees charged by your software to file for an extension. My clients pay when I file for an extension but more than my software charges me. Still, what we do takes a lot of time, so what you charge when filing for an extension should by far outweigh the software fees.

And for the unlikelihood of any lawsuit filed against a tax professional ... unless you have a billion dollar client ... the fear of lawsuits is mostly advertised by lawyers.

A client told me that his neighbours had damaged his property while he was on vacation. The damage was $24,000. No lawyer could assist my client. For a lawyer to take this case, the damage in CA had to be over $100,000, my client told me. Now, all my client could do was to go to small claims court. And yes, there was evidence, a police report written up, and the neighbours even confessing to their $24,000 dollar crime to the police. Small claims court, I believe, only goes up to 10K.