How to Evaluate Reviews of Tax Relief Firms
Key Takeaways:
- Assessing Reviews Carefully: Many review sites are biased or lack thorough research. Many also lack first-hand experience using the company. Learn how to spot trustworthy reviews.
- Red Flags: Beware of disclaimers about compensation for being listed, superficial research of the company, and abnormal review trends.
- Trustworthy Signs: Look for first-hand experience from taxpayers who hired the company. Look for thoughtful responses from companies that received negative feedback.
- Suggested Review Sites: Where to find first-hand experience. Check sites like TaxCure, BBB, Yelp, Facebook, and Google Business Profile for authentic reviews (what to look out for as well).
- Choose Local Pros: There are local pros that do the work. They often know local tax laws and agencies.
If you're searching for a tax relief firm, you should probably look at a few reviews, but before putting your faith in faceless strangers or an editorial team, you should learn how to evaluate the reviews. Unfortunately, there are a lot of pay-to-play review sites and even the sites that don't use that strategy tend to post under-researched reviews especially when it comes to the tax relief industry. Scroll to the bottom of this article to access our complete checklist for assessing tax relief company reviews.
One of the worst things you can do to find reliable help is go to Google and search something like “Best tax relief company.” The results shown are highly manipulated and often lack real reviews. This guide will show in more detail what to look out for. When it comes to these types of high-value searches, big corporations will get involved to use their trusted authority to make more money to show companies who will pay them the most to list them.
So, how do you find the best tax relief company when the review sites are publishing opinions that are under-researched at best and paid exposure at worst? The first step is understanding how the review sites work so that you can become a more well-informed consumer. The next step is learning how to find and assess local tax pros with the experience you need.
This guide explains how to assess reviews of tax relief companies and tax relief professionals. It also outlines why you shouldn't necessarily trust reviews even if they're published on trustworthy websites. Finally, it explains why you should look for tax pros rather than tax relief firms.
Why the Same Tax Relief Companies Appear on Every Website
If you pay attention, you'll likely notice the same handful of companies popping up on the review sites. Why? While thousands of seasoned tax attorneys, CPAs, and enrolled agents do tax resolution work, a few big-name nationwide companies dominate the review sites.
With the affiliate sites, this happens because the big companies pay for advertising space. Many other websites (including big-name publications that existed before the internet) claim to publish well-researched, unbiased reviews, but they also just highlight the highest-paying companies or they only look at a handful of companies in the first place. Consumers pay the price for this unfortunate set-up.
To give you an everyday comparison, imagine that you were searching for a place to eat, and every single website that you went to listed the big chains as the best restaurants. Even though you go to multiple sites, you only get recommendations for Mcdonald's, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks. None of these sites mention the cool new independent restaurants that are in your area.
That's exactly what happens with tax relief company reviews—the review sites cover the biggest names in the industry, and they totally overlook the experienced attorney or CPA who is just down the street and could have the skillset of resolving problems that are higher than the average pro at the large resolution companies.
Types of Review Sites
There are three main types of review sites:
- Affiliate sites — These are websites that make money by posting links to the companies they review.
- News Outlets — These websites post independent editorial content, but they generally don't do a lot of research into the tax relief industry and thus only cover a handful of big companies. Additionally, these websites sometimes feature paid links from partners or advertisers in their editorial content, which can get confusing.
- User-submitted review sites — There are a variety of websites that let people post reviews, and as long as you're aware of the limitations, these sites can be a great place to start your research.
In the following sections, we break down each of these types of review sites, and we analyze how they review tax relief companies. But first, let's look at some red flags and positive signs of legitimate reviews.
Red Flags of Unreliable Reviews
Unfortunately, even if the website is a well-known site with a positive reputation, you cannot necessarily trust its reviews. Here are some red flags of unreliable reviews:
- Disclaimer— If a website gets commissions or compensation from links or partners, its reviews are likely to be biased. Look for a disclaimer.
- Lack of research—For example, an article about the best companies in an industry that only assesses a very small handful of companies instead of taking a comprehensive look at the industry.
- Demonstrated lack of knowledge about an industry—For example, incorrect information about tax law in a review of tax relief companies.
- No first-hand research—rather than writing about a product or service they've tested, the reviewer just restates info from the company's website.
- Limited-time period—User-submitted reviews that were gathered over a very short time period may not accurately reflect the company's current practices.
- Reviews that seem too good to be true—For instance, hundreds of 5-star reviews with no negatives.
Signs of Trustworthy Reviews
On the flip side, there are several positive signs that indicate you can trust a review. First-hand narratives are very important. Did the reviewer actually use the company's service and/or interview real clients? Or did they just look at the promises on the company's website? You want first-hand reviews, which is why user reviews can sometimes be more effective than editorial content.
Unfortunately, however, you also have to take user reviews with a grain of salt. Ideally, you want to look for sites that vet their reviews to minimize reviews posted by bots or fake accounts. You should also look for trends in the reviews. Are there a lot of good reviews followed by a lot of bad reviews? If so, the company may have changed its practices.
When assessing user-submitted reviews, look at the responses from the company. Does the company respond to negative reviews? If so, do they leave a response that actually looks helpful? Or is it cut-and-pasted or written by AI? The way a company deals with unhappy customers can help you learn a lot about its integrity.
Affiliate Review Sites – A Review of Their Tax Relief Reviews
Affiliate review sites make their money through "affiliate links". When a reader clicks on a link to a product or service, the website receives a commission for sending a customer their way. Affiliate deals can work in a variety of ways – sometimes, the company pays a commission for every click or view but other times, they only pay a commission if the person buys something through the link.
There are all kinds of affiliate websites, and the majority are formatted like review sites, usually focused on a specific niche. For instance, PCPartPicker has reviews and affiliate links related to PC parts, VeryWellFit focuses on health and sporting goods products and services, and ThePointsGuy has affiliate links related to travel. Websites like NerdWallet and Bankrate are affiliate sites focused on money matters, including tax debt relief services.
Some affiliate sites, most notably WireCutter, which is owned by the New York Times, use reviewers who have extensive experience with the products they review. The majority, however, do not subscribe to this level of journalistic integrity, and often, they feature "reviews" of products that the writer has never tried. This trend is especially strong when it comes to tax relief firm reviews.
Let's break down a few of the affiliate sites that are likely to pop up when you are searching for tax relief companies:
LendEDU
LendEdu's disclaimer appears on the top of their review page, and it says "Many or all companies we feature compensate us. Compensation and editorial research influence how products appear on a page." Then, the "review" proceeds to recommend three of the biggest tax relief firms: Anthem Tax Services, Community Tax, and Larson Tax Relief, who are all part of the affiliate network to allow others to earn money by promoting them. See the screenshot below of what it shows at the top of the article:
Near the bottom of the page, it says, "Our team of editors have spent hundreds of hours researching tax relief companies." This claim seems highly unlikely, considering the article highlights three big companies using their main talking points.
It also contradicts the second disclaimer that appears near the bottom of the page: "To maintain our free service for consumers, LendEDU sometimes receives compensation when readers click to, apply for, or purchase products featured on the site. Compensation may impact where & how companies appear on the site. Additionally, our editors do not always review every single company in every industry."
ConsumerVoice
ConsumerVoice.org adds a couple more companies to its list of the best relief firms, but again, this post just features the main talking points that anyone can see on these company's websites. It doesn't have any first-hand experience from consumers who actually used these services.
The website claims, "ConsumerVoice.org ranks companies using a proprietary algorithm incorporating expert and customer reviews, user experience, lifetime value, and overall brand trustworthiness." but then it also admits, "To keep our site free for users, we may be compensated through affiliate relationships with the brands featured on our site. Many advertisers pay us a referral fee for customers who make a purchase or call the phone numbers featured on our website… Partners may influence their position on our website, including the order in which they appear on the page through premium payouts."
Many times this advertising disclaimer can be difficult to see, which is generally intentional to not take away from the content they are presenting. See the image below.
When you then click the dropdown, it then will allow you to read the full disclosure as seen below:
Consumers Advocate
Consumers Advocate is a review site that covers all kinds of different products. Like the other sites, it also recommends the big tax relief firms like Anthem, Community, and Larson. The article claims that the editors did over 200 hours of research, used 35+ sources, and looked at 32 companies to get its top four picks. It seems very unlikely that this short article took five full-time weeks to write.
Oddly, the intro to the article says they have four top picks, but then, the post covers five companies. The review seems to focus on information from the companies' websites with no first-hand analysis from people who've actually tried these companies' services.
Here's the disclaimer: "We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included."
If you click on the advertiser disclosure or go to the About Us page, you see even more details, including the following, "You should know that many advertisers pay us a fee if you purchase products after clicking links or calling phone numbers on our website. The following companies are our partners in Tax Relief: Larson Tax Relief, Optima, Anthem Tax Services, and BC Tax. We sometimes offer premium or additional placements on our website and in our marketing materials to our advertising partners. Partners may influence their position on our website, including the order in which they appear on the page."
To be clear, this website is admitting that those four companies paid for their spots in the list.
Trusted Publication Sites Who Publish Reviews – What to Consider
Publications that existed in print long before the internet leverage their well-known names for credibility, but unfortunately for consumers, they often take a similar approach as affiliate sites. If you look at their reviews, you will see the same handful of big-name firms over and over again, and unfortunately, the reviews are never based on first-hand experience. Instead, they just look at what the companies publish on their websites.
Why do they do this with tax relief companies? It really is simple, the large tax relief companies pay top dollar for sending them potential customers. “Trusted websites”, have lots of authority with search engines like Google and they know if they publish a piece of content, it will rank well for the target keywords that can drive a lot of business to the companies they mention, and this brings in a good amount of revenue to the publishers.
Many news outlets also get commissions from links, or they get paid to promote certain companies in their reviews. They don’t mention local pros because they aren’t on these advertising platforms. Here are some of the big-name websites that might pop up if you search for the best tax relief companies and an analysis of their reviews.
CBS News
CBS News also has an "article" about the best tax relief companies, but the article isn't backed by any solid research or testimonials. Instead, it summarizes some basic points about tax relief, and then, rather than recommending any companies, it features a series of ads for five tax resolution companies.
At the top of the article, the disclaimer reads, "We may receive commissions from some links to products on this page. Promotions are subject to availability and retailer terms." Additionally, the visuals for the companies are labeled as ads, and CBS also notes "our partner" under each company's name. See below:
However, if you don't look closely, the paid advertising appears to be editorial advice from CBS News, and you can easily walk away from this article thinking that CBS endorses these five firms.
Forbes
Another trusted media outlet, Forbes, recommends three big firms: Fortress, Optima, and Community Tax. The magazine claims to feature unbiased ratings and information. Its disclaimer says that the editorial content is not influenced by advertisers (but states they earn a commission). See the image below for what it shows at the top of the article.
When you click to read the full advertising disclosure, it shows this below:
But here's the problem: Forbes only looked at 11 firms to whittle down to three. Also, all three are affiliate links, where they earn a commission. According to the article, the writer assessed the companies by looking at their websites and calling them with a list of questions. Again, this article lacks first-hand experience or testimonials.
If you hover over the links to each of them, you will see that they are affiliate links, and they get paid for the actions users take to navigate to any of the companies.
Money.com
Money.com is a website based on a print magazine founded in 1972. Not surprisingly, its article about the best tax relief companies also lists the big players: Community, Anthem, Larson, Optima, and BCTax, as of the date we are writing this.
Again, this article just focuses on the main talking points that anyone can see when they look at these companies' websites. It doesn't have any first-hand accounts or in-depth analysis. At the bottom of the page, in small writing, the site reveals, "Money is an independent, advertiser-supported website and may receive compensation for some links to products and services throughout this website." All of the companies listed on the page have links to their sites that are trackable affiliate links, so they don't offer any options other than the ones that will pay for a link. See the disclaimer that they list at the top of the page, they say they may earn a fee, however, all links are trackable and mention in small print they are an ad.
Investopedia
Although it never existed in print, Investopedia is viewed as a fairly trustworthy source. The site publishes financial advice and information, and like the other sites, its article about the best tax relief firms lists a handful of big companies.
Although Investopedia gets money from its advertisers and partners, the links in this article do not appear to be affiliate links. The problem, however, is the lack of research. For this article, Investopedia started with a list of 20 companies. Then, the writers looked at the company's websites and checked out user reviews.
That alone is unfortunate for consumers because the best local tax pros will never appear on that type of list. Unfortunately, there are no first-hand experiences with these companies recounted in the article.
User-Submitted Review Platforms
User-submitted review platforms are where actual consumers go to leave reviews, such as the Better Business Bureau, Yelp, Facebook, Google Business Profile, and TaxCure.
When reading user-submitted reviews, remember that people who are upset are often more likely to leave a review than people who are happy. On the other hand, keep in mind that tax relief firms often encourage customers to leave positive reviews, and there is chatter online about some of these companies refusing to issue refunds to people who won't remove bad reviews.
With that in mind, here's what you should consider about the major user-submitted review sites.
Better Business Bureau
Often confused for a government agency, the Better Business Bureau is a non-profit organization that posts reviews, gives companies ratings, and acts as an intermediary between customers with complaints and companies.
Sometimes referred to as "Yelp for Boomers," this website posts first-hand reviews from actual customers of tax relief firms. When reading these reviews, remember that some tax relief firms incentivize their customers to post positive reviews and pay careful attention to how the company addresses complaints.
Many of the nation's largest tax relief firms have A+ ratings with the BBB. However, that doesn't mean they are great companies. When rating companies, the BBB considers complaints, but rather than downgrading a company for receiving complaints, it just considers how it responds. In most cases, any response will effectively negate the complaint. You can see that some companies have a 3.3 star out of 5 stars with over 500 reviews and an A+ rating. We suggest ignoring the rating and looking at the number of complaints compared with the number of reviews and coming to your best assessment. Doing this can save you a lot of headaches and weed out companies you may not want to consider.
Should you take BBB ratings seriously? Here's what the BBB says, "BBB ratings are not a guarantee of a business's reliability or performance. BBB recommends that consumers consider a business's BBB rating in addition to all other available information about the business." Our case studies are a great place to start if you want to access other information about these businesses.
The BBB is a good resource for seeing how many people are complaining about the business and saying good things as well. The BBB is generally one of the first places people go when they have a bad experience with a company to leave a negative review. Generally, people do not go there to leave a positive experience, only if they are told to do so by the company.
How to Find a Companies BBB Profile
Using the normal search on the BBB website can take time and effort. The easiest way to find a company's profile is to go to Google and type in bbb.org “company name.” This will yield the listing for their company profile.
Yelp
Yelp has over 100 million visitors every month, and it features user reviews of all kinds of companies. The number of reviews for tax relief firms is fairly sparse as the site focuses more on meals and entertainment, but it gives you a chance to see what real taxpayers have to say about tax relief companies. You can also see how the companies respond to complaints.
In our experience in dealing with reputable companies, many do not claim or manage Yelp accounts because people don’t tend to go there to look for help with tax problems. It can be a good place to review pros for tax preparation, but for tax resolution, it doesn’t obtain users looking for that type of help.
Facebook
Facebook has hundreds of reviews of most of the nation's biggest tax relief firms, and of course, you can also see reviews of tax pros who run small tax firms. One huge advantage of this site is that you can poke around and make sure that the reviews come from real people.
You can also see how the company responds to complaints—be aware of boilerplate language that does nothing to fix the issue.
Unfortunately, some reviews on Facebook are scams that are not even related to the company. For instance, several five-star reviews for a very large tax relief company are just posts about scammy investment opportunities—i.e., the scammer talks about the investment and includes a What's App link, but they have never used the company. They're just trying to get eyes on their scams. Stuff like this can skew the company's overall rating to be higher than it should be.
Google Business Profile
When you search for a business on Google, the Google reviews will appear with the business's listing. These reviews are user-submitted and can be a great way to learn about other people's experiences with a company. However, you need to take some of them with a grain of salt due to bots and fake reviews. Google has increased its ability to identify these fake reviews, however, fake reviews are still a big industry with scammers finding new angles every day on new ways to get them through.
With these types of reviews on Google Business Profile, be sure to scroll through the negative reviews and see if and how the company responded to the complaints. The response to these can tell a lot about the business. Also, be sure to read through the positive ones and see if you can find customers talking about situations that are similar to your own, this can help give you confidence that they could be a good fit.
TaxCure
TaxCure is a directory of tax professionals who specialize in resolving tax problems, and it also features user reviews. This is a great site for research if you're looking for an experienced tax professional who will provide you with individualized service. Not just anyone can advertise on this site. All tax pros are vetted before their profiles go live, and they must be a licensed attorney, CPA, or enrolled agent in good standing to be listed on the site. You can start a search for a tax professional using the widget below.
Other Considerations
You may also want to check out review sites that are smaller but more focused on tax and/or legal professionals. AVVO has profiles and reviews of attorneys. FindLaw and Justia are other attorney review sites, allowing the attorneys to vet the reviews to ensure they're from actual clients. Be aware, though, if you have a problem with taxes and are looking for a tax attorney, there are a wide variety of different types of attorneys, and you want to find one with “tax resolution,” “tax controversy,” or “tax representation” experience. LinkedIn is a professional site that also features reviews.
Hiring Tax Pros, Not Big Companies
If you want the best results, you need an experienced tax pro to work your case, and that's what you should evaluate when trying to find the best company to help you. Many of the big firms (but not all) work the same—they feature big sales teams backed by a small number of pros who are often very inexperienced and overworked. Sales teams are generally not bound by Circular 230, this is important for ethical standards and allows sales reps to make claims a tax professional cannot. Small firms, in contrast, generally have a few tax pros backed by a small administrative staff.
Ideally, you want to know who's working on your case. You want to talk with them directly, and you want to feel confident about their ability to resolve your case. Don't get pulled in by a savvy salesperson and then lost in the shuffle. Instead, find a tax pro who has experience working with your type of case and who will give you the individualized, hands-on help that you need and deserve.
Other Considerations and Resources
Want to learn more about the tax relief industry and how to find the best company? Then, check out some of the following posts:
Tax relief firms often promote IRS forgiveness in their advertising, making it sound like "IRS one-time forgiveness" is a real program. While the IRS may forgive penalties and even taxes in some cases, there isn't a forgiveness program per se.
The first post explains that "one-time forgiveness" is typically marketing-speak for penalty abatement, and the second post outlines different situations where you may be able to get taxes forgiven.
Another phrase you'll often hear in tax relief marketing is "Fresh Start Initiative" from the IRS. The Fresh Start was a set of updates that the IRS made in 2011. It isn't a program that you apply for. Here's an explanation:
Checklist for Assessing Tax Company Reviews
- Source Verification
- Identify the review source (affiliate site, news site, user-submitted review platform).
- Check for disclaimers about compensation from companies reviewed.
- Evaluate the site’s reputation and credibility
- Authenticity of Reviews
- Check for first-hand experiences in the reviews.
- Verify the reviewer actually used the company for services.
- Check the trends of the reviews. (reviews all at once, all positive, all negative)
- Volume and Consistency of Reviews (Applicable to First-Hand Experience Review Sites)
- Look at the number of reviews over time.
- Consistency of feedback (both positive and negative).
- Are reviews spread out or clustered in a short period?
- Content of Review Analysis
- Depth of the review (specific details or generic phrase or criticism).
- Evidence of superficial or copied content.
- Look for reviews mentioning specifics of services offered, outcomes, and interactions with the company.
- Response to Reviews
- Look at how the company responds to negative reviews.
- Evaluate the authenticity and tone of the company’s responses to clients.
- Look for patterns in how complaints are addressed.
- Reviewer Profiles
- The authenticity of reviewer profiles, if you can see them (real names, photos, history of other reviews, etc.).
- Check if the average reviewer has a history of posting multiple reviews or just one (mainly for Google Business Profile).
- Signs of fake or bot-generated reviews. Reviews do not talk about service or general in nature.
- Red Flags
- Disclaimers that suggest bias (compensation, affiliate links, paid partnerships)
- Conflicts of interest (reviewers affiliated with the company or work for the company)
- Compare and Cross Reference
- Compare reviews across multiple platforms (TaxCure, BBB, Yelp, Google Business Profile, Facebook)
- Look for consistency across different websites
- Evaluate differences between the platforms
- Additional Research
- Check for legal issues, like lawsuits filed against the company
- Research the company’s history and background. (what did founders do before)
- Overall Impression
- Summarize the general sentiment from the reviews researched
- Identify common themes in reviews or recurring negative feedback
- Formulate a conclusion based on the data and compare it to other companies
Case Studies on Evaluating Reviews
Unfortunately, when you're trying to get help with your tax problems, you cannot just take a single review and run with it. Ideally, you should do some comparative analysis and come to a conclusion from multiple sources. Rather than looking at reviews, try to understand the company's basic structure and how it conducts business.
We are putting together a series of case studies on some tax relief forms. We dig into the reviews, show you places to look and point out some items that are worth paying attention to.
Optima does a lot of TV, radio and internet advertising, and it's probably one of the most well known tax relief firms. Our analysis looks at this company's online reviews. We give links to various places it advertises and point out places where you can get a solid understanding of first-hand experience related to the company, rather than affiliate sites that are used to promote the company without first-hand experience.
Finding Help With Tax Problems
Don't fall for the expensive marketing tactics and aggressive sales techniques used by the big companies. Instead, find an experienced pro who can really solve your problem. To get help now, use TaxCure to search for a local tax professional who can give you the assistance you need.
We created TaxCure because we knew it took a lot of work for taxpayers to find experienced help with their tax problems. Taxpayers often opted to go to national companies because they couldn’t find someone local. The fact is, there are thousands of tax professionals in the country with deep experience in tax resolution. They are great at resolving people’s tax problems but aren’t the best at marketing. With TaxCure, you can search by the agency you have a problem with, your unique problem, and you can even further filter by reviews, solutions you are looking for, languages, and more.
