Diane O’Brien, EA

This will be my second year getting my taxes done with Diane. She’s awesome. I call and someone always picks up the phone and gets you an appointment right away. She’s very professional and courteous. Trust her for sure. Thanks Diane, see you soon.

I am a financial advisor and have worked with tax professionals at both large and small firms. In the end I chose Diane to do my taxes and she has been nothing short of wonderful.
In my five years working with Diane, I have referred her 5+ people. Some with simple and some with complex tax issues. Every one of the referrals has called to thank me.
There are few «no brainers» in this world, but if you need someone to handle your taxes — hiring Diane is one of them.

I was referred to Diane from a close childhood friend who has used Diane in the past, so this was a positive referral and I went in with high expectations.
My SO and I decided to use a CPA for our tax prep this year because we purchased a home together in 2013, and are not married. We didn’t want to make any missteps, however more specifically short ourselves any refund amount that isn’t appropriate.
Diane has a ²⁴⁄₇ answering service, however Diane is MUCH better communicated with via email. I say this only because I left messages with the answering service, but only was able to get in touch with her via email to coordinate our first appointment together. With that in mind she was great on the phone and was quick to answer my questions.
We met with Diane on her very flexible schedule, and with both of us working full time, her availability was really helpful. We sat down with all of the documents we needed (she has a very helpful checklist located on her website)
Diane took her time to explain everything to us, answered all our questions, and was great to work. She was knowledgeable and was confident in her work.
Great to know a good resource in our neighborhood! Thanks again Diane!

As someone who’s never used an accountant before, I was really nervous about this going in, especially as my tax problem basically stemmed from the fact that I had waited to file for so long that I could no longer do it online. But Diane was incredibly sweet and generous with her time, showed me that my problem was easily fixed, and sent me away with a huge weight off my shoulders.
A word to the wise, though– if you want information and prompt replies, contact her via email, NOT phone. Her answering service is horrible– one girl I spoke with was very sweet but could give me absolutely no information, and (I found out later) never gave Diane my message. The second girl I spoke with was rudely intolerant of my questions, and just as ignorant as the first girl. They don’t know anything about her practices, only maintain her schedule and take messages, so if you want to be sure your queries will reach her (and actually want answers), email is definitely the way to go.
I’m still giving Diane five stars, though, because my experiences with her face-​to-​face were stellar. Definitely recommend her, especially if you’re new to using an accountant. Thanks Diane for your help!

I’m sorry to see low ratings for Diane, as I’ve only had wonderful experiences with her over the past five years. She’s fast, accommodating and kind. She was able to squeeze me in on short notice during her busiest time of the year just so that I could get my tax return done before the April deadline — what a huge relief! I couldn’t help but give her a hug. I love Diane!

Well, I hate to write this, but I happened to see many glowing reviews for Diane., Well, she did my taxes and after I came home I had a question regarding my refinancing. I called, sent an email, and wrote a note on the envelope with my payment that I would like to speak to her. NOTHING, nada, no response, which is some of the negative reviews about her. I am new to the area and I took a chance on her. She is pleasant, but I guess when you leave her office you are on your own. Good luck, but I really do not think she cares whether come back or not. That is just my feeling.

Diane is an AMAZING accountant! She is fast, reliable, KNOWLEDGEABLE, helpful and timely. I was so happy to have «found» her (nearly 10 years ago now!) I trust her implicitely with my taxes every year (as does my husband) and have routinely sent friends to her who have also been delighted with her work … She is THE BEST!

Like other reviewers here have said, I really wish I didn’t have to write this negative review. But I found Diane here on Unilocal when she had nearly all 5 star reviews and so I feel obligated to relay my very NON-​5-​star experience. And judging by the recent spate of low reviews, I don’t think my experience was all that unusual.
We had Diane do our taxes last year and she made several careless errors that I caught, including one that would have caused us to pay $ 1000(!!!) in taxes we didn’t owe. To her credit, she admitted the mistakes readily when I pointed them out, and given the number and impact of them, she offered to waive her fee. However, it was still a bit alarming to think what would have happened had I not reviewed her work.
This year, when I was looking at our return again, I caught another set of errors — entries on a form that didn’t make any sense. This was a form I wasn’t familiar with so I hadn’t paid much attention to it previously. When I emailed her, she said she was stumped and didn’t know where her numbers could have come from, that the numbers on our return were simply what her program had spit out (even though they obviously didn’t seem right — there were lots of zeroes where actual numbers should have been). She refused to look into it further and suggested we have another accountant try to figure it out because she couldn’t. She said that she didn’t have time to rework our return and was not willing to help us figure out the right thing to file/​amend, despite the fact that she was the one who had produced the inaccurate form, nor was she willing to help us find someone who could figure it out.
Throughout this ordeal, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. In the end, I tried completing this one form by hand and asked if she could as well, to sanity check my numbers, and she refused to that as well — something that should have taken an experienced tax professional maybe 5 – 10 minutes to do?
Yes, she is very warm, friendly and helpful when you first meet her, and she genuinely seemed like a nice person. I can also forgive some level of carelessness because I can imagine how stressful tax time is for tax preparers. But I’m sorely disappointed to find out that when a real issue arises, Diane simply doesn’t seem to stand by her own work… And due to her errors, the time and headache this return has cost us are WAY more than if we had just done the taxes ourselves in the first place.
I would not wish this experience on anyone – consider yourselves warned!

I was audited by the IRS due to a mistake made by Diane, which lost me half my savings! She has refused to return phone calls since. I’m writing this so that others won’t have to go through what I went through. Throughout these reviews there’s a pattern of extremely poor customer service — actually nice to know I’m not alone. I found a new accountant who is trustworthy and responsive… you don’t have to look far. Also other accountants are willing to talk to you before you sit down to do the return, Diane wasn’t.

I tried calling Diane to see if she would be a good fit for my needs, and was told I needed to «make an in-​person appointment». No thanks!

My husband and I have been having Diane do our taxes for the past 3 years and she has never disappointed us. She is fast, friendly and gives great advice. Although we dread doing our taxes every year she makes it a very pleasurable experience.

I have mixed feelings. She’s very friendly and personable and seemed to know her stuff reasonably well but made a number of careless mistakes in the return, some of which I caught before it was filed and some of which I didn’t.
(Stuff like entering a capital loss as a capital gain and entering foreign income without converting it into US dollars.) A lot of people really like her, though, and she’s reasonably priced.

Diane is great. She’s quick, looks for ways to save you money and not too expensive in terms of preparing your taxes. I don’t *want* to sit in a chair and talk about taxes for 2 hours, otherwise I’d do them myself. Diane asks the right questions and gets to the point. In, out, and money saved!
I used her for my First Time Home Buyer’s credit and we used her this year to file taxes. I’ll certainly be back!

Another tax season — another great experience. Diane really is just so friendly and accommodating. I’m surprised to see anything other than 5 stars on here, because that’s been my experience with her, now 4 tax filings in a row (wow, I can’t believe I’ve lived here this long!)
She’s very attentive to detail and just simply nice to talk to!
Anyone needing some help really needs to meet with Diane!

I, too, am disappointed to have to write this negative review.
I had a great initial meeting with Diane. She was very personable and reasonably knowledgeable. I wouldn’t call her a tax genius. I had some interesting questions, and not only did she not offer any earth shattering insights, she also missed some basic things that others caught. Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed with her generosity with her time, her willingness to admit what she didn’t know, and here promise to follow up.
But that’s the problem… She did follow up on one question, but when I called her with some additional questions, some of which were quite time sensitive, she just never got back to me. I left something like 5 messages with her service with no response. That’s just unacceptable. A service provider always has to call back, even if it’s just to say «I don’t know,» or «I’m too busy.» You don’t just leave someone out there hanging… Especially with something as important as taxes.
So my advice is to find someone more professional. Else you run the risk that Diane will flake-​out on you at a bad time.

Diane is a true professional with impeccable customer service.
I am a young professional who just doesn’t understand how to do my taxes and after failing at Turbo Tax I reached out to Diane to do them. When I showed up with all my documents in hand she sat me down, talked me through what I need to do in Turbo Tax, explained to me why filing would be simple and told me she couldn’t take my money knowing how easy filling out my return would be.
I really appreciated her feedback and honesty and will definitely go back to her when the time comes for me to have a more complicated return.

Diane offered me a fair deal up front in our first interview, after making note of my tax predicament; I’d only be obligated if she could get me a better deal than I found for myself with e-​filing. Her friendly helpful advice made it clear that my e-​filing was (sadly) already in the ballpark for accuracy; but her advice for avoiding the debt pitfall in the future, and her clear explanations for the reason I had a debt at all, were very helpful and generously offered. How pleasant to find someone who’ll offer straight up good advice these days! I left her office with greater peace of mind than I’d had in days.

Amazing. In just over an hour Diane solved a tax problem I’d been worrying about for months. She even topped it off with some super-​satisfying number crunching on her printing calculator. Highly recommended.

Diane is one of my favorite people in the world– I went to her in last February when I was first starting up my business, and she spent several hours with me, figuring out what I needed to be doing, how I should be keeping track of everything, letting me know what i needed to keep track of– generally giving me a class on business 101. At the end of that seesion, I asked what i owed her, and she said, and I quite «well, are you gonna bring me your taxes next year?» and I said yes, and she said that would be fine, then. She just did my taxes (in her always low key, always friendly manner) and charged me less than my boyfriend paid to have his done elsewhere– without getting a class included.
In short, I can’t thank her enough– she’s just plain awesome.

Diane prepared my tax return for me this year and I must say that she was very helpful as well as being cool and friendly. Diane is an Enrolled Agent (EA), which means she is a tax professional who has passed an IRS test covering all aspects of taxation, plus passed an IRS background check.
Prior to our meeting, Diane and I spoke about my specific tax preparation needs and she outlined exactly what I should bring to our meeting. I explained to her that I am a freelance writer and editor and wanted to see what type of home office expenses I could deduct. Diane was very knowledgeable about these matters and explained them to me thoroughly. Plus I was able to get an appointment with her quickly that worked with my schedule.
Her office is conveniently located in Davis Square and she maintains office hours in the evening to accommodate us working stiffs. Diane charges between $ 100-​$ 300 for her services, depending on the complexity of the tax return. My personal return was on the lower end of this spectrum and took about 20 minutes to finish. The rest of my time there was spent chatting with Diane about kids and life and the freelance lifestyle.
I would highly recommend Diane opposed to a place like HR Block or the Tax Man based on her experience alone. It’s also a good idea to support your local business owners and keep the Davis Sq. area that tight-​knit community that we love so much.