"The first tax return that my mother, Maria Elena Bertrand, prepared was in 1955 for my grandmother and grandfather. It was prepared on an IBM punch card, if you even know what that is. She was 14 years old at the time. For the next 15 years my mother prepared tax returns for our family, various neighbors and some coworkers. She would read the booklet that the IRS would send to taxpayers from beginning to end and follow the instructions. Eventually the complexity of the tax returns she prepared increased.

We moved to Miami from Queens, NY (my place of birth) in 1971. Shortly thereafter, she began preparing tax returns for the neighborhood and actually started to charge a nominal fee, thus her tax preparation business was born. She prepared the tax returns from the same home I lived in for 40 years of my life."