Bazar Mcbean Llp
Oakville,#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Sat, February 14, 2009
The complaint is about the Cost of work done for the Estate of a Canadian who died in the US and the executors of the Estate are Americans. As one might imagine, the cross-border implications are anything but simple. I am a well known international tax specialist with over 30 years of experience. Relatively few tax specialists have the training and experience to deal with this kind of situation and I regularly am referred clients by other tax specialists for that very reason. The continuing professional development time required to keep current with Canadian AND US tax law is significant and, frankly, not everyone is willing or able to do it and do it well. For that reason, my hourly rates are somewhat higher than average. Currently, my hourly rate is $400.00 per hour and, unfortunately, most of the work that I do cannot be delegated to junior staff. Only clerical assembly is delegated. My hourly rate is very competitive with hourly rates for other international tax specialists in Toronto. I know that Partners with similar knowledge and experience to mine at the international firms charge up to $950.00 per hour and more for their time. The fact is that I am very cost competitive and regularly have to turn away work. In this case, the executors called me often and asked me to explain my work in detail and repeatedly. The consequence was that more time was spent and more time was consequently billed. A complaint was filed with the Ontario Institute of Chartered Accountants, which performed a thorough investigation and determined that there had been no breach of their rules. Their rules are strict and Chartered Accountants are routinely disciplined, as can be seen on their WEB site. They are no paper tiger. Rest assured that if any of the complaints were valid, I would have been sanctioned. I am sorry that the complainant was unhappy with the cost of my work; however, I do not believe that they were unhappy with the quality of the work done. As they say, the sour taste of a bad job is remembered long after the sweet taste of cheap price is forgotten.