LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Complaints

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• Concerned:

  Yes there are likely many good zees still with Liberty and maybe even 2 or 3 that make money! However, I hope the whole company goes down in flames! Those good ones will be fine when they take their clients and open up their own shingle. I am so glad that Screwitt has taken back the reigns because if he didn't then the company likely would have been bought, and survived. If the company goes down then no more people will get Screwitted!! There are likely many AD's still peddling Johns' BS even if he would not have been able to get his company back!

• Agree with Concerned. The good ones will be better off! The not so good are hanging on loosing money being lied to by corporate and cajoled into high interest loans.
  The overwhelming majority of Zees work hard to make their business a success and even if their business is not profitable they have not failed because they are not good business people. The cards are stacked against them; the cards in this case is a lousy business model and a crooked company.

• How long until they get delisted?

  https://pilotonline.com/business/consumer/article_df26dab8-2642-11e8-84eb-ab95c3b2a001.html

• I owned four Liberty territories at one point, but sold 2 early on. The other two supported my family with an income of about $100k a year for over 10 years. I sold one for $160,000 and the other for $100,000. I did not sell them for the multiple Liberty tells you they use - 1.2 to 1.5 revenue. It was 90% of revenue in my case.

  Recent developments are extremely disappointing and I'm glad I'm out. Hewitt is toxic to the company, and yet he has finagled getting a CEO and COO into place that have absolutely zero experience managing a publicly traded company of Liberty's size. They are undoubtedly figure-heads under the control of John. It's his personal sandbox, he doesn't play well with others, and the shareholder lawsuit is going to really take a toll.

  The industry is also turning. When average fees approach $400, that is not sustainable. I know of one franchisee who has lost a lot of business by offering a 50% discount in March only to increase his prices so prior year clients see only a slight savings. People notice nonsense like that. Too much game playing for my taste, and what other franchisees does indeed reflect on all.

• Please! https://pilotonline.com/business/stocks/article_47e88fb8-2965-11e8-8482-979e3830bb96.html

• I'm rooting for all the crappy franchisees who don't know how to do taxes and don't have ptins but still do tax returns under the identities of their preparers to all get shut down and get thrown in jail while their families are left begging for food stamps, welfare, and spare change. I want to see the IRS and TIGTA come down hard on identity theft of tax preparers which routinely takes place at Liberty. Corporate is aware of that franchisees don't have ptins and still do this but they claim they have no regulatory mechanism to stop it. Which is bullshit. This is the same Liberty Corporate who allowed franchisees to use other franchisees EFINs if the IRS rejected their application because those franchisees failed their suitability background checks.

• Liberty will see a dramatic decrease in tax returns this year and for every year to come until either the market changes or the system changes which I dont see either happening. What is maddening is the scam John used on so many franchisees and Area Developers is quite easy to figure out, yet few to this date understand it, which leads me to believe it will happen many times over again to good hardworking honest business people.

  Libertys downfall as a National tax preparation chain is Johns unwillingness to trust anyone, believing that everyone is out to steal him blind. So his system he has bragged on so long is nothing but a system that ensures he has total power and control to destroy anyone he wants too. But a system where he is God and can destroy a Franchisee or a Area Developer any time he wants is not enough. He also has had to make sure he can profit as much as possible off every single Franchisee and Area Developer no matter if they are a success or not and he has done just that for many years. There is no way for a franchise to grow like Liberty with such a limited home office staff and I mean a very limited Corp Office Staff, without doing it by the art of the Scam!

  Libertys System has always been geared toward the poor and the desperate in our economy. He has never geared it toward regular tax clientele because by doing that he looses his ability to maintain absolute control over the money. Any Franchisee that promoted running a professional tax preparation office has always been dealt with and normally destroyed. John does not believe it is possible to get franchisees smart enough to build a professional tax service. With the fees that are charged and the expenses involved running a tax office it is not easy to build any kind of tax office that can be profitable. But Liberty has had many opportunities to save the franchise and in return save many of its franchisees but has always chose to focus on the short term bottom line for John. Making Bank Product Clients the main area of focus is how he has been able to accomplish the growth he has achieved as far as growing the number of franchisees and offices.

  Liberty focuses on bank product customers because it is the only way they can ensure they can have completel control over the money and with that grow very quickly, at least up till last few years. It enables them to loan money with little to no risk overall. It is the cornerstone to there business model. It is also the main cause of most of there problems now and it will be the reason they fail completely . My understanding is that the CEO that replaced John was going to attempt to save Liberty by changing it to a professional tax preparation oroganization. It didn’t take long before he was destroyed also because John refuses to see Liberty go down that road.

  Fact is until the truth is exposed how these franchisors are able to rob and steal franchisees blind and why franchisees have little to no recourse except for complaining on great sites like this, nothing will really change and the deception and thievery will continue.

• ^^^AMEN!!! Well said!
  HE needs to be put in jail, I've been saying this for years. What is the reason the DOJ contacted my Attorney several years ago & asked very specific questions, and my information corroborated with so many other franchisees around the country and HE is still walking around freely and my professional life was in ruins for years & years. You are SO right: HE doesn't care who he mows down in the process. NOT AT ALL.

  You cannot make this stuff up. The general public doesn't understand unless they've been through it. As long as HE is still involved & not locked away, nothing good will happen :(:(

• SanFranDan, the DOJ investigation in my opinion was always a sham. I heard of the DOJ and the IRS investigating Liberty Corp and John, But all I saw was the IRS and DOJ using the information they were getting from current and ex franchisees and using it to destroy franchisees in the system and leaving John and Corporate completely alone.

  I have not seen any proof that the DOJ or IRS were ever interested in learning how this massive Ponzi scheme was created or how it worked. They were and still are in,y interested in what things look like to the public. And most in the public don’t have an understanding how franchising works. Honestly anyone getting into franchising is more than likely committing professional and financial suicide. Fact is there’s not many out there in authority that cares about franchisees. Franchisors have the money and the power mainly because of being able to steal franchisees blind. Franchisees are just common peasants to most in authority and treated as such.

• Out and SanFran: I have to agree that John and the IRS/DOJ are in cahoots with each other for the simple reason it is easier to prosecute a small time operator that does not have the legal resources that Liberty has. It make for a very easy notch on the prosecutors belt that will allow her/him to get promoted within the DOJ. This also applies to the IRS CIB as well. You advance your career by the number of people you punish in order to justify your existence. This is how government has evolved to this point.

  I wish there was a way to make franchising abuses more of an issue for regulators, but I'm afraid that the same reasons apply: too much legal effort by the regulators to go after the wealthy franchisors. Again, it has to be an easy mark for the government bureaucrats, or they won't pursue the wrong doers.

  Liberty will thus continue its shenanigans with the blessing of regulators since it is their mutual interests to feed one and another. It can't be any clearer than this: Liberty will rob you blind, squeeze every penny from you and , when finished, make sure the government will harass you forever. This is the harsh fact of life. Liberty Tax is run by a bunch of criminals.