Bay Area Planners

I can’t imagine having a better tax preparer than David Beck.
We used to get our taxes done through HR Block, but now we call upon David yearly to help us through taxes we’d be hard pressed to do ourselves (Schedule C, itemized deductions, etc.) He is patient, friendly, and helpful, getting us through even the most complex decision-​making and record keeping issues with calm confidence. Even better, he does housecalls.
So when given a choice, you could pay about the same and have to drive to HR Block for a lot less personalized service… but I don’t know why you’d want to!?!

We’ve got three kids heading off to college in the coming five years so – needless to say — we are scrambling. David Beck understands the finer points of college aide as few financial planners do. We were so grateful for his time and expertise, as well as his willingness to meet with us outside of regular business hours. You know absolutely that he’s giving you the straight scoop (however painful) and the detailed information/​spreadsheet he put together prior to our meeting backed that up. Highly recommend!

All I can say is WOW. David went above and beyond to provide me with detailed information on college financial aid planning for my daughter. By having him prepare the information it saved me countless hours. Not only that but I know what to expect and what not to expect when it comes to financial aid. I also know that it was prepared by a professional and I didn’t miss something that could save us thousands of dollars per year.
David prepared a detailed report showing our family’s expected family contribution for both the federal methodology and the institutional methodology. This tells us the amount of various family resources we’re expected to contribute in general.
Then David did a detailed financial evaluation of each college my daughter is considering and showed how much we would need to contribute for each school and what other forms of aid we can expect at each one.
Last but not least, David prepared a details college comparison for the schools showing their selectivity, test scores, graduation rate, etc.
We talked about various strategies for maximizing aid and reducing the amount of family contribution. David is extremely knowledgeable in this area. By going over this with him I now have the peace of mind that I didn’t overlook something that could save us thousands of dollars per year.
After meeting with David to go over the information he did more research based on information from our meeting and prepared additional data and sent it to me. This was definitely above and beyond.
I highly recommend David and Bay Area Planners for your collage planning needs. Oh yeah, and he doesn’t charge an arm and a leg like many companies. You’ll get tremendous bang for your buck with David and it will be money well spent.

David was nothing less than professional and kept to all appointments (met at my place in person) which was a huge surprise to me as I expected that I would have to go to him! I had my taxes completed for 2 years consecutively with BAP and was treated very professionally each time. I was provided prompt professional advise and never rushed. I highly recommend David for his services and recommend anyone requiring financial advise and tax preparation. I used to got to H&R and paid much more just to have my info plugged into their program and left with may question I didnt feel the agent could answer confidently. After going to David it was good bye H&R…