I am very grateful to have found Brandon when I was searching for a fiduciary/fee-only financial planner. Before finding Brandon, my family met with another financial planner who was recommended... read more through a workplace event (who was not a fiduciary, meaning she tried to sell us various products that may or may not have been in our financial best interest) and another fee-only financial planner who had much more expensive offerings.  

What we have appreciated about Brandon is that he is great at answering all of our questions, patiently explains everything from investing to taxes to offering unbiased recommendations about various types of insurance (renter's, car, health) and how to make an estate plan.  Being new to the Bay Area, we had tons of questions about taxes/RSUs and deeply appreciate Brandon giving us advice, in addition to filing our taxes as well.  It is nice to have someone kind and reliable to help us wade through all these issues.  Working with Brandon feels like having a great personal trainer for our money matters!

  Brandon was professional, reliable and responsive. He answered our questions patiently and went above and beyond by providing some targeted advice to help reduce our business costs. I'm glad to... read more have found a knowledgeable tax expert. I look forward to working with him for many years to come.

  Brandon was recommended by a friend and I'm glad she did. The entire process with Brandon on my tax return was seamless from start to finish. Brandon is knowledgeable and... read more easy to work with. He was able to tell me what I needed to do on something I messed up on financial planning.  I recommend him 100%!

  Brandon was so great to work with. Efficient, friendly and professional - what more can you ask for? He came highly recommended by my financial planner and I'm so glad... read more I worked with Brandon this year on my taxes. I had been using HR Block for the past few years and found the process really frustrating and slow. In comparison, working with Brandon was a breeze and I highly recommend him.

  Highly recommend Brandon who helped us with filing taxes. He did a great job in understanding our situation and telling us about tax laws we were unaware of. All this... read more helped ensure taxes are being filed correctly.
He also helped us with refunds and found issues with previous years' filing.

Good luck Brandon !

  So glad to have found Brandon to help me with my taxes since they have become a bit more complicated and I can no longer file them on my own.... read more Great communication and fast filing!

  Bottom line: Hire Brandon if you want a fast, easy, and affordable experience.

My partner and I have always filed our own taxes. Recently, CA made it a lot more... read more annoying and difficult to file as domestic partners, so we decided to hire someone to help. We found Brandon on Yelp and it has been such an easy, painless, and super affordable experience. He was even able to estimate what percentage of our joint return was due to me and what percentage was due to my partner.  He is extremely knowledgeable about tax law and his communication is top tier - he always answered our questions either immediately or within an hour. His online portal makes it super easy to upload your documents and he does the rest. I would say we spent under an hour setting up Brandon with the info/docs he needed to complete everything.

I highly recommend Brandon!

  Brandon was attentive, professional and personable. Contacted us quickly and responded with clear and helpful answers. He completed our return quickly and answered all of our questions. Brandon is very... read more easy to work with and I highly recommend.

  Brandon is your guy for tax preparation!  He saved us thousands of dollars and was prompt, responsive, and professional.  He made the whole process an breeze, despite our somewhat complicated... read more tax situation.  I 100% recommend Brandon to anyone seeking tax services!

  Amaral Financial Planning would get 6 stars if allowed!

We have been working with him for years and all I can say is great things. His professionalism and response times... read more are amazing.

Very adaptable and willing to work with you in any way, shape or form!

We are very pleased to have Amaral Financial Planning work with us and help us have financial ease of mind with taxes, investments, and anything finances!

  We have been working with Brandon to manage our financial and taxes.  We are very pleased with the level and quality of help we have been receiving from Brandon.  ... read more He did our taxes very quickly and helped us get all possible deductions in order to minimize our taxes.

On the financial planning side, we have been working with Amaral financial planning (in specific with Brandon) to set target goals for retirements and have made significant improvement in how we manage our finances.  We are continuing to work with Amaral financial planning for the coming years.   Some observations with working with Amaral financial planning is: Personal attention, very detailed, great customer care and responsive just to name a few.

  Brandon was very courteous, honest, reliable and professional. He did an excellent job everything is done electronically and very hassle free experience. Everything was well organized and efficient. I highly... read more recommend using their services if you need assistance with filing taxes.

  Brandon is awesome! I hired him after I got early exercise options from a startup I joined. He helped me understand the complexities of taxation related to early exercise in... read more a manner that made total sense. He also advised me on the best way to invest and grow my savings. Brandon filed my taxes this year. He has great attention to detail. He found a problem with my 401k contributions that I was able to fix in a timely manner and also saved me tax money on my HSA contributions. He's also always very responsive and professional. Working with Brandon was a pleasure and I'd highly recommend him!

  Super easy to work with - very patient and answers all your questions so you are comfortable with the process. Highly recommend and looking forward to continue this long term... read more relationship!

  I've been working with Brandon for around 1.5 years and he has been amazing! He always answers all my questions promptly and gives me a plethora of advice. Highly recommend!

  Impressive! Expert and responsive help for financial and tax planning.

Was looking for some professional help to review our tax and financial planning, centering on someone with both Certified Financial Planner... read more and IRS Enrolled Agent certifications. Wasn't sure if that was asking too much, but found a few options and AFP/Brandon caught my attention for the detailed and positive reviews. He responded within hours and we set a time to check in.

Have been impressed at every step. On tax reviews, he identified some savings that I had skipped due to being too cautious. Explained things, covered an exceptional event and timing, and we were set on taxes.

For retirement planning, he understood my mix of investments and did some arcane calculations that don't apply to many folks. Set there and confirmed I'm tracking where I thought.

Excellent guidance on college savings that led me to making a shift of providers due to fees and performance.

Last, he answered a bevy of questions I had on real estate scenarios, including tax implications and target ranges.

Bottom line: I had a superb experience and will look forward to periodic check-ins. The financial platform he uses with his clients is easy and reasonably secure. He presents and communicates things clearly. And Brandon was expert enough to be able to answer almost all my questions and scenarios with financial/tax/legal context on the spot, without having to get back after taking time to research.

Fully recommend. Truly impressive.

  I would recommend, Brandon for all your financial needs. He was professional & easy to work with. I will continue to use him in the future.

  We have been working with Brandon for the last 2-3 years. We feel very lucky that we found Brandon!

Not only Brandon knows that these tax jurisdictions exist, but also... read more does he know how to maneuver through them should you ever run into a problem.
Same as others' comments, Brandon is very professional and knowledgeable. More importantly to us, we just feel good about working with him.

We will continue suggesting Brandon to our friends & family who may need helps on tax preparation and financial advices.

  Brandon has been handling my personal and business taxes for the last year. I highly recommend him to anyone starting out with a business.

  Brandon was very well versed in all the aspects of my tax return, and was super helpful in identifying mistakes in past returns as well.

He was a pleasure to... read more work with, as he was patient, thorough and attentive to detail.
I highly recommend his tax preparation services to everyone.