Kost Consulting LLC - Madeira Beach, Florida

Ken M.

When I was transferred to the US VIrgin Islands we were referred to Kost Consulting (KC) to help us file US federal and US VI taxes. Every year we used KC, we found the service to be slow, expensive, and inaccurate. Last year, after providing all our documents to KC, we asked for a ballpark estimate of how much we owed or how big our refund would be be. We were told to expect a refund of approximately $2,000. Weeks later, when KC completed our return, we were told we owed approximately $2,000. We were not happy about the almost $4,000 difference especially given KC's fee that was well north of $1,000. We paid what KC told we owed to the IRS. Months later, we received a letter from the IRS stating we under paid our taxes and needed to pay the difference plus interest. KC did not have a satisfactory explanation for how they miscalculated what we owed. We did not engage KC for our most recent tax return, but recently received an email from what appears to be KC's business email address - stating they submitted to the IRS an electronic request for an extension to file our taxes. Since we never engaged KC, they either filed the extension without our knowledge (note, we already filed our return and received a refund) or, the email was a phishing scam and our information has been compromised. In either case this is not a good situation. There are far more professional, accurate, and cost effective tax consultants/preparers than Kost Consulting.