missing accountant!!

[Lilly]

We have recieved a letter from our accountants stating they no longer wish to offer their services as we are English (along with all the rest of his English clientel), despite the fact that we do speak french we had opted to deal with their English speaking partner as as we are a new business REAL simplié we felt we may be out of our depth to start with, he has left the practice and has gone to the Alps so they tell us he and has been next to impossible to contact for nearly 3 months, we are now paniking as to whether our last 2 TVA returns have been dealt with and the practice is unsure about the dossier, we smelt a rat earlier on but tried to bare with him as we really liked him, if any one knows who I am talking about ( not sure whether I am allowed to mention it here) can help with finding him or can offer some advice and can any one really recommend a good expert comptable in the Dordogne area I would be eternally greatfull.

[Catalpa]

I can't recommend anyone - but I did want to say that - if you haven't already been doing so - start putting all communication with this firm in writing and send it (via the post office) Recommande avec avis de reception. The rat I'm smelling is that the firm are trying to sever all contact with clients who have businesses which may have been badly advised or managed by this guy. They may be trying to position themselves so that they can deny any liability if official merde starts heading for the fan.

At the very least you should be given a contact at the accountants with whom you can deal until you have confirmed to your satisfaction that your previous TVA returns were dealt with correctly. If the accountants tell you verbally that they were, keep a track of who you were speaking to, when... and insist you have that confirmation in writing. If you know of other British clients who are in the same position as you, gang up and form a plan of action - it will be more difficult to ignore half-a-dozen of you who are all demanding the same course of action and it also means that if you have group meetings and not everyone speaks French, you could club together and hire a translator who would then be a witness to anything agreed.

Hope all goes well for you.

[Lilly]

Thank you catalpa, you are very right in your advice, we have only just recieved the letter from the practice and we are waiting for another partner to call us back today with the results of his investigations. The accountant in question was  a French expert comptable highly recommended on another french forum although we took him on by personnal recommendation. It never ceases to amaze that you try to do everything by the book and over and above board and ****seems to fall any way I just hope that my worst fears are not realised and that our TVA returns have been dealt with correctly and worst case scenario lost as it was originals that have been sent with recommended post and as we have not made any profit yet are due a rather large cheque from the tax office, keep your fingers crossed but as I have a bad case of doom and gloom I fear the worst.

[Callie]

Hi Lilly - how awful for you.  Catalpa has some very good advice.

I would contact the VAT office as well as the tax office.  Explain the position - you can be sure others will have suffered as well and it's possible that they have already heard of the problem. 

The French company cannot just 'opt out' like that - typical blame culture fashion, they don't want to be involved. 

Presumably you have kept all previous correspondence with the company, and have references to the English speaking partner.  If you have kept copies of the paperwork you have sent them, then it shouldn't be too difficult to recreate the dossiers.

I think you should warn as many people as possible - have you contacted other Forums???

[Callie]

Thanks, Moderators - I meant to send my post as an email (which I have now done) and I tried to delete it as soon as it had gone on the open forum but it wouldn't do it.  The I tried to cut out bits, and it wouldn't do that either......[8-)]

Sorry [:$]