We have great doubts about KPMG's competence and honesty. This due to several negative experiences with KPMG's Czech establishment in Brno. We even think they are guilty of deception, perhaps even fraud, certainly breach of contract and we think they are unethical, greedy to the point of ludicrousness, arrogant and not a reliable or capable company in matters of tax filings. This is our subjective view and not an absolute claim of fact.

We're a small company (1 million USD/year). When we moved to the Czech Republic, we needed significant assistance in filing our Czech taxes. We hired KPMG for that, because with such a high-powered team of experts, things would certainly go smooth, right?...

We paid KPMG hundreds of thousands of CZK to merely fill in the tax submission forms for 2014, which were a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement, which we had given to them, together with supporting documents and accounting files.

KPMG had a firm "no-can-do" attitude from the get-go. We wanted to depreciate some assets and had categorized them in their proper depreciation categories, but KPMG would have none of that. They said they did not trust our judgment. "No problem" we said. "You are the experts - we'll leave it to you". KPMG replied that nowhere in their company did they have a person who could correctly classify an asset into its depreciation class. "For that you'd need to hire an independent expert" they said. Yes, you read that correctly! One of the largest financial services companies on the planet told us, just before the deadline, that they refused to file our taxes if we would depreciate any assets, and they lacked the simple expertise to judge whether a machine was a machine, whether a building was a building, etc. We wondered why we paid them such an obscene amount of money (several monthly salaries for a bookkeeper) to fill out a few figures, which should not take more than a couple of hours.

With considerable effort we managed to coerce KPMG at least into filing our taxes without depreciation. KPMG seemed to be much more interested in auditing us than just doing the job we had hired them to do.

Fast forward to tax year 2015.

We still did our own accounting in 2015, for KPMG had asked 1 million CZK to do that for us, but only if we'd do 99% of the work ourselves. They would not type the expenses into a bookkeeping program, no, that would be too much effort (they said literally) for 1 million Koruna (you can hire several full-time bookkeepers for that money). We'd have to supply them with all data already in spreadsheets, and they'd have to be formatted exactly to KPMG's specifications so that KPMG only had to import them into their software. So we'd be paying them forty thousand dollars (in one of the lowest-wage countries in the EU) for pressing the buttons for data import and a little manual cleanup. No thanks, greedy sleazeballs!

So instead we just asked them to merely submit our taxes, like they had done the year before.

KPMG was very clever, when they promised things. They always wanted to talk on the phone or in person. They never put those promises in writing. On the phone, KPMG's Pavel Otevřel assured us that for 100,000 CZK they'd file our taxes. He later sent us a contract to that effect. To make a long story short: We supplied KPMG with our P&L and balance sheet and KPMG then refused to properly file our taxes. They snidely remarked that if we'd not file for an additional delay (which may be rejected, resulting in a fine) and if we'd not pay KPMG a ton of money extra for "a lot of extra work", that was "not covered by our contract" that we'd likely end up with a tax audit, "which we strongly advise you to avoid". These were the words of Pavel Rochowanski, Partner at KPMG.

We examined our contract again and we examined the forms KPMG refused to fill in. They were the Czech-format Profit & Loss and Balance sheet. So we'd paid KPMG 100,000 CZK to fill in those two Czech tax submission forms, we supplied them with our P&L and Balance sheet plus our entire accounting in GNU Cash format, plus every imaginable other documentation and were standby for consultation in case questions arose. But KPMG came with the familiar "We can't do that". They were seriously going to keep our money and NOT file our taxes as mandated by law!

The reason: KPMG seemed to work by the principle that the customer has to do virtually all the work. KPMG told us that they expected us to do our accounting using Czech software, that spits our a P&L and Balance sheet in the format the Czech tax office mandates.

This means that for all practical purposes, KPMG had charged us at least two gross monthly salaries for a postage stamp.

We run a company. We sometimes make mistakes too. But we always make it good with our customers. KPMG works differently. They flatly refused to fill out those documents unless we'd pay them for it, and they said it would be expensive and the tax filing deadline (which already had been extended) would not be met. So in our opinion, they brazenly defrauded us to the tune of a hundred thousand Czech crowns - enough money in this country to hire a prostitute every single working day of the year, just to get an idea of the amount of cold hard cash we're talking about here, and how outrageous the situation, where we basically got cheated out of that insanely high amount, with no service provided to speak of.

We felt scammed. We felt betrayed. We felt in danger of tax fines and the ominous audit, Mr. Rochowanski threatened us with ("pay up more cash or else.."). So we told Mr. Rochowanski that if KPMG would not abide by their contractual obligations that we'd file an official complaint with KPMG's head office and that we'd publish this story online. A day later, their Mr. Otevřel assured us over the telephone around noon on June 17, 2016 that KPMG indeed they could and would file our taxes after all, including the P&L and Balance sheet that posed so much trouble for them. And there would be no extra cost, and it would be done before the filing deadline at the end of the month. We were relieved. We did not have to write this story after all.

Our relief was of short duration. One hour later, KPMG emailed us, saying that they wouldn't do it after all unless we paid them extra money and we had to hope that the tax office would grant us another filing delay. So we paid them a small fortune and they left us up shit creek without a paddle. Those 100,000 CZK we'll never see back, and nothing practical had been done for that money and nothing practical was going to be done either. It was simply money paid for nothing, fraudulently or deceptively obtained in our opinion. Moreover, the promise made over the phone constitutes in our view a legally binding contract, which they reneged upon an hour later, which would be breach of contract.

Our review of KPMG (all our subjective understanding or opinion based on our experiences only and our own interpretation of our specific situation):

• KPMG does not have the expertise required to file corporate taxes,
• KPMG will, when it suits them, deliberately commit breach of contract,
• KPMG sometimes deceptively obtains large sums of money from their customer and provides little to nothing in exchange,
• KPMG arrogantly refuses to solve customer problems, regardless of how much money was paid, regardless of what KPMG promised to do and regardless how potentially damaging the situation is for the customer. All that seems to count for KPMG is to make as much money as possible, using any and all means, while providing the absolute minimum service they think they can get away with.

KPMG are a bunch of criminals. That is a fact. KPMG admitted to criminal activity. They're gangsters, plain and simple. KPMG admitted to being crooks. Go and steal from governments and multinationals. But don't steal from the small business who brought jobs and millions in taxes to your country, KPMG. Shame on you. Due to all the stress and troubles with things that should be very simple such as filing taxes, we're looking into moving our operations to Austria. At least they speak our language there, and they have a reputation of being thorough and reliable. We gladly pay 6% higher taxes for the peace of mind it gives us to have access to reliable financial service providers. Six Czechs will lose their jobs as a consequence, and the Czech Republic will lose 3 million CZK/year in tax revenue and many millions more not spent and invested in their country. Greed and incompetence has a real cost, not just for KPMG but for the societies that allow organizations like KPMG to do their damage.

Update: KPMG wouldn't budge so we had to hire a tax advisor who had to work a few days on getting familiar with our bookkeeping and tax filings, and he had just a few questions and requests. We provided him with some data and the matter is now resolved. KPMG would have been able to do the same in a couple hours of work but chose not to and not only lose a customer but also exposed themselves as the assholes they are. If you read more articles in our "scam" section, you'll notice that we never use such strong language. But we think "assholes" is the most fitting description for the top management of KPMG Brno. This tax advisor will file our next taxes for a third of the price KPMG was charging, and his service includes the filing of the essential documents that KPMG refused to file.