Review Time
I am really unhappy with the Bright Tax service this year. I have been a customer for 9 years and have always had a great experience. This year I have had no messages from my CPA, poor and evasive communication about e-filing deadlines resulting in needing to mail my return in, and an astronomical price increase. The service I’ve received is frankly not worth the nearly $1,000 I’ll pay for the service. I was also quoted for a service I did not need, then told “just accept the quote to get started and we will remove it later if you don’t need it.” I have always liked the ease of the Bright Tax system but I can’t say I will come back next year due to these negative changes.
I have been using Bright!tax for well over ten years and the experience this year has been awful. It’s like dealing with a completely different firm.I applied for an extension until December. I received an email a few weeks ago telling me the FBAR was due 15th October and my information needed to be uploaded by the 6th of October to make the deadline. I provided the information with the timeframe, but my FBAR is still not filed. When I followed up, I received an out of office message from my accountant saying she would be away until 3 November. I emailed every email address I had for Bright!tax and had a response that the missed deadline was a “hiccup” and people are “usually” not penalised for filing their FBAR a few days late. They asked me to review my information, which I did, and I replied informing them they’d miss the state in my address. It’s now been a week with no response and my FBAR still isn’t filed. A week following up and no response has been received from anyone. Bright!tax dropped the ball on a deadline a few years ago but apologised, blamed the fact that they were short staffed, and I gave them another chance. Seems they have a lack of care and customer service these days and it’s really disappointing when their prices continue to increase.I’d recommend any other service - one that had the values Bright!tax used to have when they replied quickly and worked to resolve issues.
Filing from Portugal used to be a knot in my stomach—until Bright!Tax. Their portal is crystal-clear, and Sofia replied to my midnight panic email with a calm, step-by-step fix. Refund hit my account six days later. I actually smiled during tax season this year—who knew?
In the first few months, my experience was disappointing. There was no clear tax strategy, no preliminary estimates shared, and no proactive communication. The process felt automated: information was collected, and after a long silence, I received the tax returns without recommendations or context.Fortunately, after I raised questions, the exchange became more fluid and the process was completed.I believe BrightTax should engage more closely with clients during the early stages by providing a customized tax strategy aligned with each client’s profile, while being more proactive and communicative throughout the entire process. If that happens, I will probably regain my confidence in the service next year.
I have been filing with this company for years (literally nine years). Suddenly I got a quote that is almost double the price. They want to charge me 830 dollars for one year of running my taxes when it's normally around half or max 500. What is going on? They responded to my concern to say that their prices are inflated because of the lack of accountants and the new software they have to use and so on. Question: would you pay 830 bucks to run taxes when you don't have property, any other income besides a foreign salary and thousand bucks of consultant pay and literally never have a high enough bank balance to report anything? (I feed all my money directly into my pension pillars so my bank balance is so low and literally there is nothing extraordinary about my financial circumstances right now.)These folks used to be really nice when they needed clients. Super helpful. Now they are snobby and they have too many clients and not enough accountants and charge more. That was the memo they made sure I received from every direction and with every message the last two days. They asked me to name a price in the end so I'm "not in a corner so late in the year" based on the surprise rate hike and "I'd have time to find some other service."I said 500. And the response was "that is extremely low for a firm of our size but ok." I mean, is that tone necessary? Who cares what size your firm is. I am a client and loyal and if you are too busy for me and able to rob other people, why would I think anything big of you?I don't. And I found a cheaper way to go even this year. Much cheaper. Look out, AI might make that accounting company quite small soon and you all will remember that being cool with your customers is better an evergreen setting.
It looks like I am the outlier of these reviews. I had a horrible experience with BrightTax, despite getting assurances from the CEO about what I would experience. I found many mistakes (apparently they have no QA process), the most egregious of which was classifying interest as a penalty withdrawal. Then dismissing me when I asked about it. No excuses for this kind of error. A director stepped in to set things right and provided a partial refund but I’m nervous the rest of the return is riddled with mistakes that I didn’t catch as I’m not an accountant. Beware.
I began working with Bright!Tax a few months ago in order to clean up my standing with the IRS. My contacts were quite pleasant. The work was done in good time. All information has been submitted, and I am now waiting for a response from the IRS. Overall, the experience has been much easier than I anticipated thanks to Bright!Tax's process. I plan to call on their services in the year to come.
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