Our company, Washington Tax Services, is based in Seattle, Washington. We have four Enrolled Agents on staff, one CPA and one attorney. The Enrolled Agent's license is granted by the IRS and gives the tax professional the ability to practice in all 50 states. We help people from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Tampa, Florida to Presque Isle, Maine. We have 20 years of legitimate experience to draw from.
When is local better? The only time that I would recommend a local tax professional over Washington Tax Services is when a TON of bookkeeping (and I mean a ton of bookkeeping) is going to be necessary to make Profit and Loss Statements. For the record, we have taken on many cases like this: it just requires shipments via UPS, usually.
Local, however, is often worst. A company that advertises on TV whose corporate offices are in South Carolina gives people the wrong impression that that they are local. In actuality, their firm has temporary offices in strip malls around the country staffed by SALESPEOPLE. I have heard that many of these fly-by-night offices are no longer in existence, stranding hundreds of customers.