Gillespie Tax Management Ltd

★★★★★

“Moved to Gillespie many years ago while it was still being run by George and initially things were very good. The past few years were a disaster under Karen Reape though. You can never speak to her directly, receptionists are fierce gate keepers that simply block all calls and messages are never returned. Emails can go unanswered for months. For two years running Karen Reape was late in submitting our personal tax returns which resulted in fines both years. After finally getting fed up with never being able to get in contact with them we moved our business. It has now taken nearly 3 months of emails and calls to try and get them to hand over the necessary details to our new accountants. I would avoid them like the plague.”

★★★★★

“Came home to Edinburgh after spending almost 4 years in Australia in 2017 to find I had to fill in self assessments from 2013. Decided to use Gillespies as I don’t have much of a clue doing that sort of stuff. I paid £600 which I was assured I’d get reimbursed somehow by HMRC was Karen reapes words. Months went by and I kept getting letters for late penalty fees to which I kept getting informed from Karen reape to “ignore as it will get sorted”. Kept getting letters saying I was due more and more. Karen reape would never reply to my phone calls or emails and whenever I went to the shop “she was working from home”. Finally decided to sort it out myself after years of worry and stress and eventually found out that if she told me to appeal with good reason to being out the country I’d have had a better chance of escaping these penalties. So now I’m £4800 down due to her incompetence. Would avoid taking your business here and do yourself a favour and go somewhere else.”

★★★★★

“Used this firm when it was run by George McKenzie and had no problems and recommended it to family members. However I understand that it has two new directors one of which is Karen Reape running the Inverleith office where my family went. What a disaster. Karen Reape told us not to worry that she would deal with HMRC on our behalf. She told us that she had sent letters and made phone calls to HMRC, but we received no notification from HMRC. But HMRC kept issuing penalty notices. This went on for some months and during this time when we tried to contact Karen Reape she would not return telephone calls or answer emails. Eventually when we managed to contact HMRC, they had no records showing that letters had been sent to them or telephone calls made to them by Gillespie. We eventually managed to sort out the problems ourselves. I don't know what the Salamander Place branch is like but would stay clear of the Inverleith Branch and Karen Reape.”