Precision Tax Relief Review

Precision Tax Relief is a tax relief company based in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Services offered include tax lien, bank levy and wage garnishment help, full and partial tax repayment arrangements, and tax filings.

Advertising

Precision Tax Relief focuses their client acquisition efforts to the Internet.

Honesty

They may win the award for selling hope and dreams with claims of killer savings. We found this on one of their web pages:

Their Settlement Stats

• 94% Success Rate (on website and online ads)
• 2.6¢ paid for each dollar of tax owed
• 468 IRS Settlements accepted since 2013 (Editor’s Note: what exactly is a “settlement” anyway? There is actually no such terminology within the IRS except for The Joint Large Business and International (LB&I) Division/Appeals Fast Track Settlement Program, which is a different book on a different shelf than anything to do with Precision or any other tax relief company. )

Elsewhere Precision Tax Relief claims they get 80% of Offer in Compromises accepted, which contradicts the above 94%. We’ve never seen or heard of such encouraging stats by any tax relief company yet. It’s tempting to stop paying taxes and just hire them to make it go away (just kidding!).

Transparency

Precision Tax Relief gets list a good number of licensed staff on their website, as well as key management and ownership.  They have attorneys, CPAs and E.A.s on staff. We’d like to see more personnel listed however. They do not list, or do not specify, the consultants you talk to on initial consultation.  This is a crucial role and many firms use unlicensed people in this role. If a company has licensed sales consultants they tend to list them so we have to put a question mark here as to why Precision Tax Relief isn’t offering more information about this position.

Accredited

Precision Tax Relief has been a BBB accredited company since 2011, with an A+ rating. As of October 2017 they have two complaints with the BBB in the last 3 years (though only one review), which is an excellent track record. Precision Tax Relief reviews with Trust Pilot, a quality third party review site, are of high volume and high quality. This is a good sign. We would like to see more professional organization relationships. If they have them, they are not effectively telling us so. Precision Tax Relief is clean on Ripoff Report and Pissed Consumer .

Precision Tax Relief BBB complaints screenshot

Established

Precision Tax Relief was established in 2011 according to their Secretary of State filings and their BBB report. It says, however, on their about page that they’ve been building a reputation […] since 1991. This seems difficult to imagine because Scott Gettis, co-founder of Precision Tax Relief, was still in high school in 1991. Perhaps this is a typo on their part.

Ethics

Aside from extravagant claims of settling your taxes for pennies on the dollar, Precision Tax Relief appears to do good work. They have a money back policy and they do not guarantee results, which is good.

One niggle is that they say in one place  that the have a flat fee, but in another they say that the fee is dependent upon the facts and known situation, and is subject to change. So how and how much does Precision Tax Relief charge? Let us assure the reader that the facts and the actual tax situation almost always change from what the taxpayer thinks are the facts and what the actual fact – taxes owed – are. The that changes is usually for the worse. Therefore a change in fee is very common and appropriate. We’d like to see the term Flat Fee disappear from all tax relief companies.

Conclusion

Precision Tax Relief has more going for them than against them. They appear to have very happy clients, judging by the number of positive reviews and the lack of negative review. As everyone knows, if you are messing up, people love to tell the world about it. Also, Precision has both an Enrolled Agent and an CPA as company principles, as well as a strong staff. As mentioned before, we’d like to know about the personnel giving the initial consultation. Most people in this role in most firms are unlicensed. If they have licensed people we’d like to see this on the About page, along with the other staff.

Our biggest hangup with Precision Tax Relief is the claims for settlements and the appearance, either deliberate or by extension, that they can make taxes  owe go away. The appearance of nearly 100% settlement rates is too close to the edge for our comfort.  This may not be the intent but they sure look a lot like the ill reputed “Offer in Compromise mills” that were put out of business years ago. We think Precision knows this messaging is over-optimistic. That said, we also think Precision Tax does much better work than those firms of ill repute.

We say don’t hire Precision Tax Relief because you think your taxes are going away. Very few people get a break from the IRS and don’t hold too much hope that you will be among the few. But Precision does have a good reputation so just make sure to verify the qualifications of the person with whom you’re talking.  If they meet your satisfaction then you are probably in good hands with Precision.

How to Contact Precision Tax Relief