Maybe he thinks he's done such a crappy job he doesn't deserve to be paid?

Maybe, knowing your financial situation, he thinks you need the money more than he does.

For myself, I hate billing. Yes, I went into this line of work expecting to make a living, but the parts of the job I like definitely do not include asking people (who've been sued! without good reason!) for money.

The obvious solution is to only represent horrible people.

I don't see how this is your incompetence and not his incompetence. When you realize he hadn't billed you you reached out multiple times, and I'd say the ball is entirely in his court at this point. Other than mailing him checks for random amounts of money, I'm not sure what you could do.

I was thinking I could press him on 2017's bill to get a yearly amount, and then ballpark what I owe him and say something like "X and we call it even?"

Otherwise is this just going to drag on like the slowest game of chicken? Am I eventually going to come out ahead by sticking with him? Is he really doing our taxes for free?

3 is true.

Can a competent CPA really be this bad at accounting?

Why do I feel shame about this whole thing?

6: Maybe he's an angel CPA like Michael Landon in that TV show.

7: I'm callin' you out on this shit! You got no reason for shame!

9: Can we talk about my outfit after this? I'm ambivalent about this whole elaborate-sleeve thing.

Honestly, I don't see any obligation to be pursuing the guy. Ask him what the fee is going to be for your 2017 taxes, and pay that amount when you give him all your 2017 stuff. Or when he gives you the 2017 returns to sign. Past years are his problem.

Can a competent CPA really be this bad at accounting?

Hey, sounds more like a certifiable public accountant! Folks,

you'll be here all night?

Can a competent CPA really be this bad at accounting?

Technically they're bad at invoicing, not accounting (absent other evidence). For all you know he's recorded the transactions (or lack of them) perfectly.

Our CPA double bills us so your family and my family average out to paying CPAs what they're owed. Problem solved!

Works for me!

I've had multiple experiences with sole proprietors who are terrible at billing. I also have known people who, in spite of having tons of money, find dumb excuses for "forgetting" to pay bills and get indignant when reminded of it.

No moral, no mineshaft, just "people are weird."

My brother used to own a metal shop that would make pretty much anything you could imagine. He loved the challenge of difficult project but would frequently not bother to send a bill. The money was not important to him until he ran out of money and had to close his shop.

Vaguely similar situation with my downstairs neighbor, who runs a framing business.

I have a lot of things I'd like to take out of cardboard tubes and look at on my walls and it seemed neighborly, so I asked her to frame a couple things for me. She did, I paid, all good. (Well, it was on the expensive side, but that's OK.)

I had her frame two more things, took delivery, and she said she'd invoice me later. This was two years ago, and I've reminded her multiple times.

I'm now taking this refusal to bill me as a weird way of saying she doesn't want any more business from me, but then I'm terrible at interpreting humans, so have no confidence in that judgement. We're very friendly otherwise, including her occasionally asking me for help with random things.

Did you have her frame something too awful for words?

OT: Too awful for words.

As he knows, tax preparation fees were tax deductible* in 2017 and previous years, and they aren't after the Trump tax bill. Insist on a discount in the percentage as your tax bracket.your tax bracket.

Seriously, don't remind him again and don't pay him unless he bills you. Definitely don't pay anything where the work was done more than four years ago, you're home free on that, if a random website I checked is accurate.

*actually, only under limited circumstances, but let's not get hung up on details.

21. Jesus Christ what is wrong with people?

19. Maybe she has the hots for you and hopes you'll get the message.

Seems like we've reached peak comity, so it must be time to get back to heebie's outfit.

I'm already wearing something else!

I don't think this counts as "really good advice", but:

The nonprofit I'm on the board of recently got dinged for not sending in something only the auditor could send, and only the auditor knew had to be sent; they had no reason for the lateness other than disorganization. We were still formally responsible.

Given how much one relies on an accountant when they prepare your taxes, I would be wary of continuing to use them if they display this level of disorganization or avoidance.

I feel like disorganization and avoidance aren't really things 'tarians are in a position to complain about.

27 is probably good advice. Ugh.

That's what I always said to my therapist.

27 is an excellent point. The managing agent for my co-op had a breakdown a few years back, and stopped paying bills: we didn't figure out what was going on until after we had been sued, defaulted because we didn't know about the suit, and they used the judgment against us to freeze our bank accounts. It was very exciting.

Nothing ultimately terrible happened -- he didn't seem to have been stealing, just not writing checks he should have written -- but it was a huge mess to clear up.

||

This place. What kind of editorial process is it when you have your curators write labels and panels and other content for a major exhibition, then have upper management freak out and get nervous and copy edit same (at least 4 people, one of them a non-native speaker) and notkick it back to the curators who wrote the originals to see if inadvertent changes weren't made along the way? Complete changes in meaning so that the label becomes factually inaccurate, an inexplicable change in a publishing date, and a label for a major piece that now sounds like a child wrote it. And now I hear they've all been sent for translation. I've been begging to have my eyes on the edits for weeks now. How can they have decided not to have us look these over as an acceptable workflow? We're still over a month out so we can fix this but my having to raise these issues is raising hackles. And this is something I've been going on about for many weeks now. But I'm going to die inside if I have to see this shit on the walls, my carefully curated exhibition walls. That's this place all over. Try to kickstart a kind of Anglo-American entrepreneurial educational culture but everything is hierarchical and stovepiped and gate-kept. Good grief.

|>

On the other hand, if you're rich enough you can fail to pay taxes on your enclave for years, then when someone buys it up at auction the local government will invalidate the sale, no big deal, just an honest mistake, probably the government's fault for not being at your beck and call.

I just googled to see what "TY" meant in the closing of an email, but I'm aware of all internet conventions except the really obvious ones.

Thank you very much, Mobert. That email was private.

OT: It's nice to see Spam targeted this way.

Dear beneficiary,

This is Gen. John F Kelly, the secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, appointed by President Donald Trump. Your delayed payment in the tone of US ($ 7.5 Million United States Dollar) that was held by IMF / FBI has been released because this is a new administration. Following the new administration's debt settlement policy,

We have tendered your fund release file for immediate release and shipment to your designated address. In this case, you are expected to reconfirm your Full Name (as stated on your government issued photo ID), shipping address, Nearest Airport and your Direct Cell Phone number, for immediate delivery of the consignment box containing your total fund. These details are needed for proper verification due to fraudulent activities going on around the globe.