LIBERTY TAX Franchise Warning Part 2 is a continuation the guest post by a Liberty Tax franchisee, who posts on UnhappyFranchisee.Com as NCHillBilly.

NCHillBilly warns prospective about the downsides of the Liberty Tax franchise opportunity.

In LIBERTY TAX Franchise Warning Part 1, the franchisee warned of a

• High royalty fee,
• One-sided franchise agreement,
• Lack of AD accountability,
• Unfair dispute resolution,
• Inadequate tech support
• Ineffective marketing,
• Mandatory free returns,
• Lack of systemwide teamwork,
• Non-standardized pricing,
• Lease liability,
• Higher expenses than expected.
• Lower income than expected.

In LIBERTY TAX Franchise Warning Part 2, NCHillBilly’s allegations include:

• With Liberty Tax, you don’t own a business
• Liberty Tax uses gag orders & noncompete agreements
• Liberty Tax gets paid before franchisees
• Liberty’s financing is too good to be true.
• Liberty Tax gives misleading sales numbers
• Liberty Tax has a poor customer retention rate
• The Liberty Tax system is constantly changing and ineffective.

What follows are more opinions of commenter NCHillBilly.  We have added the bolded subheads for readability.

Are you familiar with the Liberty Tax franchise?  Please leave a comment – positive or negative – below.

Part 3: A Warning from a Liberty Tax Franchise Owner

NCHillBilly writes:

Part III: Why I would not recommend Liberty Tax Service

Liberty Tax awards are bogus  When you first meet John Hewitt, you will be highly impressed with his implied knowledge, name recognition and so called celebrity status.

You will be impressed with all of the awards that he has won.

Accounting Today magazine has named Hewitt one of the accounting profession’s top 100 most influential people eleven times.

The International Franchise Association honored Hewitt as its Entrepreneur of the Year in February 2006.

When you investigate how these awards are won, you will discover it is through a voting processing, which John’s employees are instructed to vote for John until he wins the award.

John has no experience in accounting, nor does he hold a college degree.

John Hewitt uses franchisees, then discards them  Until you become a franchisee, John Hewitt appears to be your new best friend making you feel like you are a member of his family.

Once becoming a franchisee you will discover that you do not have direct access to John.

He sells you on idea of becoming a CEO, but there is no direct communication between CEO and CEO.

John Hewitt is a master in deception at every stage from being introduced to Liberty Franchise until becoming a Liberty Franchisee.

John takes full advantage of franchisees for his own personal gain, and once he is done with you he tosses you aside like a piece of garbage.

Tossing individuals aside why not ask about his son, Danny Hewitt that was tossed aside in 2012.

Danny was one of his hard chargers, promoting and marketing Liberty Tax 24 x 7.

Danny was once an area developer and individual store owner and all of this was taken away from Danny.

Liberty Tax sent out a mass email stating that Danny was leaving Liberty Tax to start his own advertising and marketing business.

If Liberty Tax was so great and offered monetary opportunities, what happened here?

Liberty Tax churns franchise territories  Reselling of territories, John Hewitt’s business plan is not about long term franchisee ownership, but a constant reselling of the same territory every three years, and each time the cost of territory continues to go up.

If it is an established territory, the likely prospect will be convinced to even pay more.

This not only applies to territories, but also to area developers.

He is not truly interest in your long term success at all.

This is Liberty’s major income source selling and reselling territories, not just royalties or marketing fees that are taken from franchisees.

Franchisees are responsible for Liberty Tax’s mistakes  Liberty’s 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTTEE, beware Liberty Tax as whole does not honor this guarantee; it is the franchisee responsibility.

It does not matter if it is a preparer error or even Liberty Tax software, the franchisee becomes totally responsible.

This guarantee not only includes the interest and penalties being imposed by the IRS or State, but it also means refunding the cost of the return and if it was a bank product that includes all of the bank related fees involved.

Once the franchisee honors Liberty’s 100% SATTISFACTION GUARANTEE, the franchisee will not receive any royalty or marketing credits for honoring Liberty’s guarantee.

Liberty’s in house tax preparation software, Liberty Tax does not accept any responsibility for software errors in determining incorrect refunds or balances owed.

The franchisee accepts all of the responsibility.

Often the franchisee is not aware of this mistake within the software, until 2 – 3 years later when the IRS or State does a computer audit of the return and catches the mistake.

Also read: LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Complaints (2600+ comments)

LIBERTY TAX Franchise Warning Part 1

LIBERTY TAX Franchise Warning Part 2

LIBERTY TAX JTH Holding, Inc. Receives NASDAQ Notice of Non-Compliance

LIBERTY TAX Leaked Email Exposes Sleazy Sales Tactics

LIBERTY TAX: Are Liberty Tax Franchise Owners Living Their Dreams?

Are LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Owners Happy?

ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE LIBERTY TAX FRANCHISE OR JTH HOLDING INC.? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.

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Tags: Franchise churning, John Hewitt, JTH Holding Inc., Liberty Tax, liberty tax complaints, Liberty Tax Franchise, Liberty Tax franchise complaints, Liberty Tax franchise costs, Liberty Tax franchise warning, Liberty Tax sucks, Nasdaq: TAX