Cowlishaw & Co

Very disappointed with the service provided. I only received my cheque 2 weeks ago so in total it took SEVEN whole months to get my tax back!! Unbelievable and completely UNACCEPTABLE!!! Each time I called the office, I was always fed the same response from the receptionist: We are working on it". Every time I sent through an email

Do not use Cowlishaw & Co accountants. Tom used to be my family's tax accountant, and for several years he was fantastic. The last two years has been terrible.Last financial year I was audited, and told by the reception staff that I deal with it myself without Tom's help. Due to this misinformation, I missed the deadline for the submission of my receipts and all of my deductions were nullified. I received 1/3 of the refund I lodged and was told I need to appeal the ATO's decision.I then have asked Tom to help me, for which I have chased him since September last year. No email has ever been answered, and if I don't speak to him directly, I never receive a call back.When I do speak to him, it is a plethora of excuses as to why my appeal hasn't been addressed or typed" yet. It's now 7 months and I've had enough.Save yourself the stress and time; use another business."

I have been a long standing client of Cowlishaw & Co, but I have lost faith, loyalty and confidence in this firm after the accountant can not give me the same time and respect I have given him over the years, just when I need him the most. I think I'll be finding myself another accountant for the next financial year

I have used them for years without a problem but this year not so good. I have been waiting for a response going on three weeks, each time I call I'm told someone will let me know. My return is not lodged with the ATO, Tom assured my partner and I we would get an email in a week outlining our return. Sad fact is up until this year I would have given a 5 star review, how hard is it to tell me how much and when will it be ready? Not returning calls or responding to emails is unacceptable.

We have used Tom for over 10 years and although he appears old school, he is by far the most knowledgeable accountant we have dealt with.

I have been going to see Tom for close to 11 years now after being recommended to him by a work colleague and must say that for a large amount of that time I didn’t have an issue however, over the last couple of years I have found that I have been required to call him to chase up when my return will be coming in after being told it would take two weeks.The staff on the phone are nice enough but always say someone will return my call and it never happens. This years return has been by far the worst with lack of communication and giving out the wrong information which has caused issues with the ATO in determining the amount of the return not to mention the return was lodged two weeks after seeing Tom. In total I waited almost 2 months for a simple tax return after being stuffed around by the staff, and due to not submitting the correct documentation to the ATO on time cost me $1500.00.For this reason I will not recommend this business which is a shame after being a client of theirs for a long time.

I have used Cowlishaw and co twice in the past now and tried to use them again this year, after doing my tax return over the phone and being told it would be lodged the same day, I called back 5 days later to be told to expect a delay of 2 weeks.Long story short 8 weeks and about 50 phone calls and emails later I couldn't get a call returned to me let alone my tax return lodged, Period.I ended up having to use another accountant. If you're that backlogged you can't manage to do the job its fine, but you simply do not treat your clientele like that.Horrible service, won't use again.

I won't be bring my business back here next tax season. While I think that Thomas is undoubtedly a good accountant, my impression is they severely lack organization and have taken on too many clients. It took several months and numerous emails and phone calls for a relatively straight forward personal income tax submission. Then once I received my return I found an error. I completely lack confidence that months later after our consultation that they actually got my taxes correct.

3 of the worst thing about the tax return service. 1: almost impossible to request for a call to talk and discuss questions/issues of the tax return. Loads of emails and phone calls daily to get hold of someone and always get a standard reply that someone will call you soon and the call never came. 2. The promise of replying to ATO question is not done resulting in the tax returned automatically adjusted by ATO while we were advised not to provide any details to ATO directly and have to go via the this tax agent. 3. We spend too much time providing the documents to answer ATO questions but in the end Cowlishaw team still doesn't go back to ATO to provide the answers. A big amount of money was lost because of that and they still charge the fee without bothering to reply to the question how they are going to get back to the customer. And they will never care for any feedbacks or suggestion about the communication issues from customers. We have to find another tax agent to do our tax this year as the least we can hope for in a tax agent is to respond to our question and help us with ATO questions but we cannot find it here.

In my opinion DO NOT waste your money on this tax agent. Bloke doesn’t even honour his appointments. Or care that he missed my appointment and after days of trying to get him to call to do my tax I just keep getting told his busy will call you after his finished. Still waiting a week on. No reply from staff.