Achille Benko & Duvall

Having been a long time client of Deb Murphy and Assoc. she merged with ABD. While it did not go smoothly that was on DM & Assoc and NOT ABD. We had very tricky taxes and still do and what they did was outstanding and nearly miraculous saving us thousands in possible taxes and penalties due to the bank fiasco of 2008-​09. While we thought we would only work with them the one year since we are in the city and they are a suburban outfit, my loyalties have to remain with them since they have done an outstanding job for us.
Kevin Palmer
Frank Schneider
Chicago

do not hire this firm… they are going to be reported to
the ifdpr… as a matter of fact a class action suit is going to take place hopefully against this firm and is actually going to, be in process…
do not hire them!!’ they have to, be one ofmthe most unprofessional, unskilled, unworthy, non responsive accounting practice, …do not hire them! every comment
from the prior reviews is true and accurate,…i feel sorry for what these
people had to, endure and suffer!

Tom Duvall’s firm took the hand-​off from my prior CPA when she retired. Tom has been very helpful, took the hand-​off flawlessly, and I found him able to easily take-​over where she left-​off, understanding the complexity of my returns easily, and keeping everything on time for me. He keeps you legal, and keeps your taxes low, where they should legally be. I’ve had accountants in the past, several years ago, who couldn’t do anything on time, or who spoke to me in «accountant-​speak.» Tom makes it easy to work with him because he speaks to you in plain English. I’ve already referred another self-​employed friend with very complex returns to Tom. :0)

Worked with Deb Murphy for years. In her email this year she had «merged» with Achille Benko and Duvall. I trusted the relationship and had hoped to hear from Deb about my tax filings. Its is now way past April 15 and I have heard nothing from the firm, nothing from deb murphy either. I am now having to call again to the firm to find out what went wrong and get my taxes files or find out if an extension was filed at all. Working with Deb Murphy was the worst mistake I could have made. No excuse for her lack of professionalism and lack of courtesy and lack of communication,.

I’ve experienced exactly what the other review stated, bad customer service, lack of communication and lack of professionalism. A senior member Margaret helped dig us out but we are still waiting for our taxes with 6 hours left to get them in. We tried to support someone in our community and ended up feeling like we got taken. Deb cashed our check the day after we wrote it on FEb. 8^th and has yet to deliver any services. We were in her office 5 days before she moved and didn’t inform us. When I went back to her office 3 days later to drop off paper work there was a sign that they had moved. Hiring Deb Murphy was the worst mistake I’ve made in choosing an accountant.

Short version: Communication and customer service were very poor. They were given a tricky situation and proceeded to drop the ball entirely.
Long version: The professional I’d contacted to handle my federal income taxes this year, Deb Murphy, chose to merge her company with this business and due to personal issues wasn’t available to assist them. Things happen, I get it, but here is where the problems started. I wasn’t alerted that a different group would be handling my taxes.
I called on my own two weeks after meeting with Deb and left a voice mail asking for a status update. Amanda called me back and said they had my file, but were waiting on information from me. Of course, I had no way of knowing this; I’d never been told. So I emailed the information and waited a couple more days, the I asked Amanda for an ETA on when they’d be done and she replied saying it wasn’t possible to know. I called yet another week later and I was told that they were *again* waiting on information from me, which I *again* wasn’t aware of. When it became clear they didn’t understand some basic things about what they were doing (like if they were supposed to also be filing taxes for my wife), I lost confidence in their abilities and decided to take my taxes elsewhere.
To their credit, one of the «senior» members did talk to me when I came to pick up my papers. Not to their credit he didn’t seem to understand the communication issues I’d had at all, talking mostly about the problems they’d had deciphering Deb’s notes.
All of this could’ve been prevented if then been pro-​active, given me a call when they got my account, and maybe even asked for a meeting when they realized they didn’t have the information they needed. As it is, I wasted over a month waiting on them. They never once, not once, reached out to me without me prompting them.