Truckers review ATBS accounting tax services

I've been using ATBS for a year or more, and they've been good. I pay them $18.46/week, deductible expense. They advise me on taxes, when and who, and how much. They do my P&L reports and balance sheet, but I don't use the reports much, not any more. Same truck, same driver, same company, things have settled down. I like the work ATBS did for me on my tax reporting, federal and state. So I say they're good based on my own experience.

 

still waiting for them to finish my 2013 taxes.....not super impressed, but they have a bunch of junk that would be a PITA for me to go hunt after.

 

I have "heard" countless people say that they don't go after every deduction for you either. Hire a local firm that does taxes for other O/O's

 

That may well be true, Oscar, for some drivers. Clients mail in our expense receipts monthly. I carefully go over them with my rep, because I don't want somebody I don't know, somebody who doesn't drive or know me, saying yea or nay on my claimed expenses. (all valid, no fudge factor) I also carefully went thru my tax filing with their specialist, who was cooperative. I'm a veteran tax payer, and I say this - trust no one, no preparer, no lawyer or accountant. I don't feel negative about it, either, it's just that we're all human and anyone can slip, anyone can make an error of commision, or omission. If that one slip is on your account, that's bad. If it's on someone else's account, so what? In the '50's, I was there, Salk Vaccine saved hundreds of thousands of people from having polio, a dreadful disease. In one application, they vaccinated 12,000,000 people, and "only 14 contracted the disease from the live vaccine." Great success percentage, right? Not so much if you were one of the 14 whose lives were impacted. Tax preparers, to me, are like doctors and mechanics. Some are better than others, none of them are purely perfect.

 

The nice thing about it is that if they mess up and it costs you money, you can collect against their professional liability insurance.

 

Been looking at services like them and have found nothing better. Local is best but it can get expensive for all that they offer.

 

Here's the scoop on ATBS...My husband signed up to use their services about 5 years ago. They charged $75 per month then and have now gone up to $85 per month. We will no longer be using their service as of yesterday. 3 out of the 5 years we have used them, they have sent inaccurate statements for my husbands account. Having worked at the IRS, I had to go over that first years end-of-year statement with a fine tooth comb and give them corrections. These were their errors not my husbands. We thought they had gotten their act together after that and continued to use them. However, this year I did not file the 4th quarter taxes by the 16th of January and according to the 4th quarter form 1040ES you "must file 4th quarter by 1/16/2016 OR file your tax return by 1/31/2016 and pay all taxes owed in full". We did not receive the Form 1099 before the January 31 deadline so we used the End of Year statement from ATBS to file our taxes. WOW!!!! There was a $17,000 difference between the End of Year statement and the 1099!! When ATBS was contacted, the rep that we normally deal with was not there so my husband spoke to another rep who DID NOT know about the Estimated Tax deadlines for the 4th quarter and claimed there was no penalty if filed by April 15th. When our rep contacted my husband, he said that the $17,000 difference would not make a difference to the IRS so don't worry about it. That $17,000 difference was in our favor and INCREASED our refund by $6,000. Their rep has wanted to do our tax return for the last 5 years and we have refused. Do you wonder why? We will be using a local accountant for $75 per month and probably continue to use H $ R Block for our final taxes. Here is something else that happened this year. My husband has surgery and was out of work for 4 months. ATBS sent the quarterly tax estimate for about the same amount from the previous quarter even though he had only worked 2 weeks out of the whole quarter.

 

I don't understand why people pay a company monthly to add up receipts. Keep your receipts in envelopes, at the end of every month, quarter or year end, add them all up into their respective categories. Take that list at the end of the year to your tax professional and let them enter the figures into the appropriate forms. Save the $1020 in monthly fees.