LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Complaints
UnhappyFranchisee.com asked: Are LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Owners Happy? If you’re familiar
with the Liberty Tax franchise, please share a comment below.
Entrepreneur magazine has ranked the Liberty Tax Service franchise #3 behind McDonald’s & Subway. However, some commenters who claimed to be former Liberty Tax franchisees left stern warnings on the Franchise-chat forum.
This post was originally published
BostonTax wrote:
I’m a former Liberty Tax Franchisee
I hope you are ready for a little enlightenment! I held a successful Liberty Tax Franchise for 5 years until I decided to let the franchise agreement lapse. I did this for a few reasons:
1. The royalty fees were outrageous! 14% went to normal royalty while and ADDITIONAL 5% went for so called advertising royalties. The ad royalties were supposed to be put back into your local market to build the brand name. This was never done! All advertising in addition to the ad royalty I had to pay for because it did not fit into Liberty’s concept of advertising. I don’t know exactly what the concept was because our AD could not give an answer and the approved methods changed by the week.
2. Corporate was totally unresponsive to the needs of the franchisees. The AD system is designed to recruit anyone who can write a check for 100K. No other skills or ability required.
3. The minute you are behind in a royalty payment, they send you a notice to cure. After that, if you don’tpay, they try to terminate your franchise agreement.
4. Upon termination, Liberty enforces through legal proceeding a 2 year, 25 mile radis non compete clause that is in the franchise agreement. This is enforceable in the Eastern Division of the Federal District court, where, at least 2 Liberty friendly judges preside.
5. Liberty does not recognize chargebacks for bad debts as an adjustment for your royalty fees. All royalties are based on your gross, not your net collectable. This was an ongoing issue with them and the accounting department did not have the ability or the inclination to resolve!
My best advice is do not go with these guys, they are bad news. If you like to have people collect royalties and provide no support, then this is the franchise for you! It is very expensive to get into, the initial fee is around $32K just to buy the territory plus those pesky royalties. You can’t make money on this concept.Most of the surviving franchisees I’ve talked to in the last 2 years have experienced great difficulty not only in making a profit, but in the corporate support or lack thereof.Remember, 19% of your gross is getting kicked back to Liberty, which is excessive by any standards. Please do yourself a favor and call former franchisees ,those that are currently getting sued (they are very likely to talk, as I found out), and current ones to try to get the straight poop.
Barbara Green wrote:
I too was a Liberty Tax Franchisee and I agree with everything you said.
The only reason for purchasing any franchise is because the business model is a proven marketing success as evidenced by the profitable franchisees. That is why you pay a license fee of $25,000. Being profitable is not in the cards for a Liberty Tax franchisee. Liberty Tax’s market/ business model is aimed at individuals who have very simple tax returns, i.e one W-2 and standard deduction which is why they were very successful in Norfolk, Va. That market is full of military people with one w-2.
Liberty will sell anyone a franchise at any location, in any georgraphic area, even if there is not a chance in hell of the franchisee being successful.
At one time, I too owned a Liberty Tax Franchise for one tax season. It was only one season because of the behavior of the Regional Manager who called me on January 15th demanding and screaming “Why had I not generated 200 tax returns and that maybe this business was not for me. I was stunned and confused since employers are given until January 31st. to give w-2’s to employees. Apparently, he thought that I was in Norfolk, Va. where that is possible.
It only goes downhill from there. The bottom line is I lost all of my investment in this businees (approx. $80,000) because I closed it rather than becoming a victim of this unethical company. NOthing would make me happier than to be a part of a class action lawsuit.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? DO YOU OR HAVE YOU OWNED A LIBERTY TAX SERVICE FRANCHISE? ARE LIBERTY TAX SERVICE FRANCHISEES HAPPY? WHY OR WHY NOT?
.
Recently visited an area in the SE where I used to own my stores. Found 7 stores listed where there used to be more than 17, and know for fact that 2 of those 7 are out of business. The only ones left are in the very low income areas which I would have expected. Most are not in retail store fronts but instead stand alone run down buildings along major streets with very low rents.
Let me suggest that retail individual income tax business will soon fail. This is not to say the income tax preparation business will fail, but they will need to specialize in small business and more complex returns to stay alive. It is too costly to own a storefront and make money.
As all the others have discussed, this is a deep hole that you will regret getting into.
At this point, people have been leaving posts on this forum since 2009. There are many, many negative comments. The prospective new franchisees should be prepared by finding sites like this one, reading through all or most comments and making an educated decision based on what they want to buy into and the experiences of many unhappy ex-franchisees of LTS. If the number of new offices opening up in the mid to late Fall has dwindled significantly, then we have done our job. If the numbers are still high, they are most likely inflated by Corporate somehow and don’t show the true numbers of a struggling franchise.
This company may have opened up 19 years ago as a way to “help” the lower class get their refunds quicker………..this is no longer the case and the terms of the agreement have changed as RAL’s and ERC’s have gone by the wayside. Yes, one way to avoid EIC’s is to just not do them. If you are doing more middle class and small business taxes, there shouldn’t be a need for EIC’s.
Hewitt is and will always be a fraudster. One day we will see him pay for his “more than dishonest” approach to tax preparing. Meanwhile, he has absolutely ruined the lives of so many unaware franchisees that it’s a shame he’s still out there, free to continue to believe his own crap.
So many of us are waiting for that day when his picture is flashed in the newspapers, on the computer news and tv news headlines saying that he is caught, has frauded the gov’t and the American people for years and years and years and he has to pay for that price. File the name Hewitt in the dictionary under the name fraud and racketeering.
Bill has asked, let’s hear from the new franchisees of your experiences. What is it like to work for an LTS franchise in 2016? What news has anyone heard re: Baltimore and the whole Maryland scandal?
Thx Let’s hear from some of you numbers people. Greg?? Hope LTS continues to get squashed and becomes irrelevant in the Tax prep business.
SanFran
I think you will be happy by the end of this tax season. You will probably be happy about the time first half results are posted. I think you are going to see over the next 2-3 years you’ll see a big consolidation in ‘the branded, franchise model of storefront tax prep. Your also going to see quite a few small independents exit the business. This season will tip the scales in that direction.
^^Thanks for the update, Greg. But I’m afraid I won’t be happy till he’s behind bars. Who knows how long that’ll be, if ever. :(
I got out …….. Was in that cult for about 4 years
2016 was the worst, constant negative news articles and either NO support or LIES from LTS
I did not even go to VB for the convention, figured it was nothing but propaganda
I truly believe LTS taught the fraud that happened in Maryland and New York….I have been to EOT and tax academy and the teachings are there
Also charged us franchisees 45 for every advance check that was approved…..
everyone I have talked to lost their a$$ this year unless you were in the cool kids group and committing fraud
I can’t say it enough: Liberty clearly teaches the game of fraud at all their so called ‘training’ sessions. Liberty is designed to funnel in as much dollars as possible for the next 2 years until they finally go under. The business model is now only a vehicle to maximize profits to Liberty corporate by shaving off increasingly greater amounts of fees from franchisees. The best way to do this is to allow and encourage fraud knowing that the IRS is very slow in enforcement. By the time the IRS and other tax authorities start looking into Liberty’s illicit practices, Liberty will have disappeared. What happens then is those that perpetuated the frauds (corporate officers) will go scott free. This is the biggest shame, since all the franchisees will be left holding the bag.
Between royalties and service fees and userous loan rates, it is impossible to survive in this industry as a franchisee, let alone an independent.
I can’t say it enough: Liberty clearly teaches the game of fraud at all their so called ‘training’ sessions. Liberty is designed to funnel in as much dollars as possible for the next 2 years until they finally go under. The business model is now only a vehicle to maximize profits to Liberty corporate by shaving off increasingly greater amounts of fees from franchisees. The best way to do this is to allow and encourage fraud knowing that the IRS is very slow in enforcement. By the time the IRS and other tax authorities start looking into Liberty’s illicit practices, Liberty will have disappeared. What happens then is those that perpetuated the frauds (corporate officers) will go scott free. This is the biggest shame, since all the franchisees will be left holding the bag.
Between royalties and service fees and userous loan rates, it is impossible to survive in this industry as a franchisee, let alone as an independent.
From what I’ve heard the loans are being looked at as having false or misleading claims or .etc due to low approval rates and being misleading to consumers with low to mid teens approval rates. “When Elephants Fight, It’s the Grass That Suffers – African Proverb” I believe you will see LTS aka grass along with others suffer while more powerful forces fight it out and remain standing after the dust settles. LTS has the life expectancy of the ACA maybe 2 years before complete collapse.
Hewitt dumped 20,000 shares on Oct 3rd (because he’s a turd) and Micheal Piper sold 4748 shares on Oct 5th which smells like shit :) Looks like this POS stock is being flushed!!!ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahhahha
TEA, love that proverb! Back in the time when RALs were hot, banks with contracts with the tax stores handled the loans and were free to approve/disapprove applicants. Most were approved, but back then banks were allowed to take on much more risk than regulators allow today. Who handles the loans now? If it’s still a third party, all Liberty has to do is blame the lender for the low approval rates and the execs walk away with “clean” hands.
Bank funded loans are available through any qualifying tax business. This includes the moms and pops. They are small loans and not a major factor. There is plenty of business for those who go after it. Organized stores with good preparers will survive.
By the way, there are tons of accounting practices for sale and people trying to get them sold before year end. This includes CPA firms, retail stores, and others. Do your work and you’ll survive. If there’s a problem during the tax season- cover the sign, and keep it moving.
I purchased four territories and a master territory as an area developer.
I sold the AD territory back to the company two years later for double what I paid for it under their right of first refusal. I sold two of the territories to a relative and kept two, which I operated for 14 years, very profitably. I sold the two territories for $250k. So in addition to making a good living from the business, I sold it for far more than I invested.
During those 14 years I was never once taught or advised how to do something dishonest, unethical. immoral, or illegal. I had my differences with the senior management from time to time, and I was barred from posting to their internal message board because they sometimes didn’t like my criticisms, but that was their right. It is not a perfect system, and they sometimes take in franchisees that I could predict would fail. That’s why I didn’t want to be an AD, but any business is what you make of it.
You have to be an entrepreneur and you have to be somewhat intelligent. Liberty is not a money dispensing machine. I think some people are attracted to it because they think they’ll only have to work 3 months out of the year. If you are lazy and think that way, don’t buy a franchise. You will likely not be successful.
Jim; Could you tell us where your territories where or is that some kind of secret? I was involved
with Liberty from 2005 through 2009. I know that some people have made money but the vast majority haven’t. The proof of that can be found within Liberty Tax financial statements. It shows
the number of stores by year. Of the 503 stores opened in 2015 38% failed to open the following year. 60% of the locations close after year 2 and 73% after year 3.
If you buy existing store for multiple of net fees instead of profit, If you borrow all the money to open, have no experience in accounting or tax prep or don’t have an experienced manager, spend to much for your location, bad location, absentee owner because you have a full time job. Satellite locations. Some reasons New stores would have high turnover.
James:
With no disrespect to you, you sound a lot like Barf villa. I was a very early franchisee, earlier than Bill and I can tell you that at that time, LTS could care less if you had a tax background or not or were an entrepreneurial workaholic. They sold you a territory if you had the funds. Period. I also had multiple offices. My AD was the most irresponsible, lazy SOB you’d ever imagine. I had no problem putting the work in and as a result, I too was successful. Not by your terms but very successful in my own right. My issues with the company are so incredibly numerous. When you use the word ‘fail’, it makes me cringe because many, many, many of the issues I have had with LTS have nothing to do with the success I had as a multiple office entity. I didn’t borrow a penny from them. They were some of the worst crooks I’ve ever encountered in a work place and it got worse and worse and worse each year. I couldn’t wait to leave them and it had nothing to do with monetary ‘failure’. Nowadays who knows what type of people pay for territories or what their background is. I do know that once I had more than one office where it was difficult to be in more than one office at a time, that’s when problems with employees and theft occurred. (That’s the only thing I cannot attribute to that hellhole of a company). Not sure where you get three months out of a year. Most ‘intelligent’ people (as you call them) know they have to be open almost the entire year. Tax classes in the Fall and prep began earlier then it does now. I stayed open after April 15th too, usually until the convention in June. To say that people can’t be lazy is a dumb statement because you cannot generalize since each person’s experience before they become a franchisee and during their 5 year contract are all so individual. I maintain that this was the worst nightmare of my life and many ex-franchisees on this forum feel the same. If you’ve had monetary success, good for you. But I value success in many ways and monetary is just one way to be successful. At this point, I would not recommend this franchise to anyone, lazy or not. It’s not a franchise of ethical people or any moral values. They will destroy you given the chance. I speak from experience. This is not for anyone that has a conscience. I doubt it ever was.
Guest: You left out the biggest reason why these stores fail, Liberty is a lousy franchise plain and simple. No brand name, no advertising, minimum royalties of $5,000, $8,000 and 11,000 the first 3 years, poor training, poor support, budgets that are inaccurate, etc.
The whole corporate style of Liberty is to take as much money from its franchisee’s as possible until they are bled to death. Then its time for the next victim to line up. This is a continuous vicious circle. Liberty encourages bad behavior by its franchisees because of corporate’s disrespect for them. Liberty teaches the fraudsters since that is what they know best.
Does anyone have any idea of what’s going on with the insider trading? I’m guessing that earnings for this quarter are going to be disastrous! Also, what is happening with the ongoing government investigations?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bofi-federal-bank-announces-expansion-123000443.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/metabank-h-r-block-announce-123000297.html
So….how do you all think this is going to affect liberty and jh?
After 5 years or so of the biggest player not competing in liberty’s bread and butter market how are the franchises that are teetering on the edge are going to fare?
This is not an expansion for Block. Just announces their banking arrangement since they are out of the bank business. Means Block, JH, Liberty will have a refund advance loan. Even the mom and pops will have them if they sign up. All early season stores will be busy, including Block. Refunds are just going to be later. Looking forward to the season beginning. No worries.
Guest2
So you don’t think all the talk Liberty had about having a competitive advantage by having ral’s when block didn’t was legit?
You don’t think that it might bleed some returns from Liberty and others?
It was integral franchise promotion to claim this competitive advantage.
Now there is a truly level playing field for RAL clients and you believe it isn’t an expansion?
I believe you are not correct in this. I think this will negatively impact the RAL providers that offered when block couldn’t.
We shall see
Greg,
From what I’m hearing it’s not even close to a level playing field what i’m hearing about the product. It is light years ahead of what is being offered elsewhere. Which is what I would expect they have the resources to put behind something that no ones in the retail business can touch based upon their size. Time will tell when the info is made public. Revenue of 3 Billion vs 173 million no match. They poked the bear!
John: When I got involved with Liberty the company was private so there wasn’t a site like this and the company didn’t have to publish any financial information. That all changed when the company want public. Now that they are I encourage anyone looking at this franchise to review their financials. The following is taken from this year’s financial statement;
“Our Company-owned offices may not be as successful as our franchised offices. Historically, almost all Liberty Tax offices have been owned by franchisees, and most of the Company-owned offices we have operated during a tax season have been offices previously operated by former franchisees. For the 2016 tax season, we operated a total of 310 Company-owned offices. Our Company-owned offices tend to be less successful than our typical franchisee-owned offices because they often represent offices transitioned from a less successful franchisee. For this reason, we are not able to obtain the continuity of staffing in Company-owned offices that we expect to experience in our franchisee-owned offices.”
Read this paragraph twice, understand that this company is marketing you their system and wants you to pay for that system yet their “less successful than our typical franchisee”. Of course in the next sentence they explain why that is “Because they often represent offices transitioned from a less successful franchisee. If the system was any good shouldn’t they improve on the prior franchisees results. More importantly if their system was so good and such a big money maker why don’t they just operate all the offices and keep the money for themselves.
“Buyer Beware”
More issues
http://www.thestate.com/news/business/article110871152.html
Greg: No. I think it means any tax office who signs up in time can have an advance product. These are not the RAL’s of past years. I do think a record number of people
will apply for the advances. That means the banks will make money, not tax offices.
Tax offices left to explain all the declines.
guest2
We will see
Meet you back here about mid March and let’s compare if Block has an increase and Liberty has a decrease
I’m only going by what John said
He claimed that having this product when block didn’t have would drive clients to Liberty. I think he was right.
I think a significant portion of the limited success Liberty has enjoyed was do to the fact block was at a competitive disadvantage in this segment of the industry. I think block will have a superior product due to its scale and resources. I believe Liberty will experience A negative material impact.
The issue on this site is not how HR Block will fair over Liberty Tax or vise versa. It’s about trying to educated potential franchisees about the pitfalls of investing in this company.
JTH already knows this company is on life support. That’s why he’s bleeding out the company by issuing dividends. He is now shifting his energy to Simepre Tax and is indirectly involved with One Stop Tax Franchise which according to it’s site is promoted by JTH.
Bill,
I’ve heard the name One Stop but don’t know anything about it. I looked at the site is there any citable source for his involvement in OSTF?
Ok Bill, the dividends are interesting but the one stop, not at all. There’s a guy down the street who’s got more offices. Its a start-up in franchising. A new tax prep franchisor crops up every year in my state. This years group got more offices than one stop. Refund Advantage is interesting.
Went back to the Entrepreneur site for One Stop and realized that what I read as “Promoted by Liberty Tax” was not an endorsement of One Stop but and advertisement for Liberty tax. When you look at One Stop site it’s like they just mimicked Liberty Tax. I’m surprised JH isn’t suing them.
Considering all the fraud, shouldn’t the IRS reconsider the role of the intermediate service provider when it’s a franchisor? As we saw in the Maryland investigation, the current structure helps insulate
the franchisor when fraud is committed even though both the franchisee and franchisor are benefiting from the frau.
Good point, Bill, about the fraud responsibilities being shared by both Franchiser and Franchisee. It seems logical that Liberty is pushing their ‘expertise’ and ‘support’ as a selling point to a potential franchisee, shouldn’t this constitute a financial arrangement that both share? As we know, Liberty has openly taught quite a few franchisees on how to charge more by constructing tax information for the client. This seems to me to be an example of Liberty’s culpability in the performance of such frauds. They should share the risk as they are definitely taking the reward.
This company is a bad investment and an inept business. I haven’t been involved with the company since 2019 and Friday night I find that Liberty sent me email to answer a survey about conference calls.
Hello,
We would like to hear your thoughts on our monthly and daily (during peak) conference calls. Please take this quick 5 question survey to help us understand what you would like to hear on these conference calls.
Take this survey
Thank you for participating! Your feedback is very valuable to us.
Sincerely,
Carolyn Castleberry
Liberty Tax Corporate
1)Do I listen to the conference calls? – Never because I’m no longer a Franchisee
2) What information would you find most useful? – I miss Annie Fuller’s tips on rounding
up tax clients off the street. No potential fraud there.
3) What would you like to hear JH Say – I resign.
This is the second time they sent me an email. The first time was to enter my store front into a “Liberty Tax School Competition”.
From Accounting Today: “Columbia, S.C.: A federal court has permanently barred Liberty Tax Service franchise owner Christopher Paul Haynes from preparing federal returns for others.
The civil injunction order prohibits Christopher Paul Haynes from acting as a federal return preparer and from supervising, managing or employing federal return preparers. Haynes must also provide the government with a list of all clients for whom he or his business prepared a return for any tax year from 2010 to the present.
Haynes agreed to the order.
Last February, the government alleged that Haynes and his employees prepared false federal income returns in order to inflate clients’ refunds at three Columbia-area Liberty franchises. According to the government’s complaint, Haynes and his employees prepared returns that included false or inflated income and expenses on Schedules C, bogus dependents, false filing statuses and improper unreimbursed employee business expenses. ”
Interesting how Liberty is the smallest of the three national chains but its name keeps popping up on these court dockets far more frequently than HRB or JH. Adds some weight to the former franchisees’ observations about their “training.”
This franchisee knew better. When you read the governments charges it obvious the franchisee warned more than once. Greed. IRS is also to blame because this problem they can control. Expect this season to be the game changer when early refunds don’t come if W2’s or 1099’s not in the system. That will close loads of bad preparers.
The fact still remains that there is a high proportion of Liberty Tax Franchisees that are getting themselves into trouble with the IRS. I’m not so sure the IRS gives warnings to preparers, they just pounce.
There is a pattern here.
^^They’ve (LTS) already admitted that they call the IRS on their own franchisees. (How stupid) The pattern is LTS. It’s not happening in other tax franchises. These people are sheer idiots. Anyone that calls the IRS on their own franchisees (after telling them how to maximize their sched. C’s) or used to anyway, should be sent to jail and shot. ^^The IRS doesn’t warn preparers, but it does seem odd that the preparers are all LTS franchisees (hmmmm, no coincidence there) Yes, the pattern is with LTS, JTH and all the idiots that work for him. When is the DOJ gonna wake up and get their guy??? We’ve seen it happen lately with Wells Fargo and many other corporations where the CEO is in trouble………why not LTS? They certainly deserve it and hopefully the DOJ has enough dirt on him to put him away for years.
The IRS does warn preparers. They send a letter first and may also call a preparer. Store owners not notified about the preparers letters, even though returns under stores EFIN. Still no excuse for processing EITC returns without required support, but EITC is a problem all over. Thousands of ‘mom and pops’. Several shut down in my area by the DOJ. Greed that’s hurting everybody.
^^speaking from experience, they do not warn preparers. Maybe some, but certainly not all. Sorry, but much of what has happened has nothing to do with greed except that of the f—— CEO and the way many people had been trained by corporate. I hope the DOJ continues to do their job and see the overwhelming blatant pattern in this franchise.
Another Zee goes down for fraud Craig Comer is a current AD according to DOJ. He was another elite 18 committing fraud. The top Zees a good percentage commit fraud, corporate knows that these offices produce fraud returns and they encourage the filing of EIC schedule C fraud by promoting these fraudsters at company events making them Superstars elite 18, million dollar club, five million,dollar club etc. Years later we find out the top dogs in the company are all doing fraud returns. Liberty loves this because they can have these Zees do trainings and help hype the company so they can sell more territories at 40k per store. Why is DOJ not going after the big fish a.k.a. John Hewitt? So many investigations going on it will be interesting to see when it all comes crashing down. Buyer beware!
http://www.nationalfranchiselawattorney.com/2016/02/liberty-tax-service-under-irs-investigation-for-franchise-fraud-2.shtml
^^concerned zee: you are a thousand percent correct. Can’t wait for this hellhole of a franchise to be shut down permanently. So what does JTH do? He opens up yet another National Tax service. The problem isn’t 100% LTS, it’s HIM! :(
DOJ is working it’s way back to Hewitt. Taking out all of his Elite 18. Taking them out essentially puts LTS on the financial skids.
As to Hewitt pulling money out of stocks is not illegal. All officers can pull out money via stocks at certain time each year. Need to read the K-1 of when those options are available. Usually only at certain time of the year. So that needs to be put to rest. That is not illegal.
What is illegal, is him profiting off the American People and stealing tax dollars via these manufactured tax returns by these Elite 18 people who are crashing and burning because of their association with Hewitt. I’m sure someone will throw him under the bus eventually, or this is way of getting to Hewitt and building their case. Either way, LTS will be eliminated eventually.
The worst thing about this is that they tell New Zees to expect $250k in gross revenue and $75k profit per office after a few years. The fraudster elite 18 and top performers at the meet and greet will all tell you this is possible when in fact you will make way less than this amount unless you decide to start filing fraud returns. I can guarantee that less than 5% of offices do this kind of volume. No matter what Liberty Corp will sell you a bunch of crap and make it look like its nuggets of gold.
Buyer Beware!
Franchizee and Concerned Zee, you are right on the money. It has always been the recognized highest performers within the system are those that have been able to master the art of fraud. To gross $250K and net $75K is a load of BS. That translates into a profit of 30% which is quite unrealistic considering the royalty fees you have to pay let alone the financing charges of the territory purchase. Many people have bought the Brooklyn bridge with thinking like that. You can get suckered by these people at Liberty if you are not careful. Stay away from these crooks!
Another Liberty Tax Franchise goes down this time in Minnesota Mark and Ornella Hammerschmidt pleaded guilty and stole over 2 million from US Treasily. Potential franchisees must know about fraudulent franchisees. Liberty has them everywhere but new franchise owners do not get this disclosure on the 10k. Disclosure must be a priority before new zees drop 40k on this failed franchise system.
Buyer Beware!
They were charged in 2015. Real problem is risk tax laws will change. The number of retail stores will continue to shrink. A lot of consolidation in the next two years. Tax season should be very interesting. Christmas spending at record levels and no refunds until February 15th. Letter or refund? Get your headache medicine ready.
Looks like JH and HRB have comparable loan products from the same bank haven’t seen or heard anything about LTS how about anyone else?
T.EA: Listen to Liberty’s analyst call tomorrow (Dec 8th)…they should have details on that call
Concerned Zee; Liberty Tax advertises its franchises explaining “Don’t have tax experience? That’s OK. Liberty Tax provides training and guidance every step of the way”. Now you clearly see a pattern of tax fraud carried out by multiple franchises all using the same methods and the franchisor has no accountability? Did all of these people in different states learn this on their own? Liberty provides the training, the conference calls and facilitates the interaction between these franchises. We all know they monitor tax return volume and average net fees, but that’s for their benefit and has nothing to do with compliance.
Bill, Good post..that peice of advertising should be sent to the IRS. I will be surprised if the IRS is not shutting down more offices this year. I have heard of one franchisee who is an Area Developer “help the homeless.”
Liberty released it’s second quarter earnings and reported a net loss of 9.3 million dollars compared to 9.1 million last year.
They site the following as one of the reasons for the increase in the loss.
•Seasonally low revenue for the three months ended October 31, 2016 declined 8.1% to $7.2 million. Fewer new territory sales and transfers among franchisees drove most of the decline.
This is what we all want to hear, that our message is having an impact on this company.
Keep up the good work!