LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Complaints

5,730 thoughts on “LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Complaints”

• I think they are trying to join the 21st century. Block is at least five years ahead of them in linking on-line and in-office tax prep. People using HRB At Home software could pay for an office preparer to review and sign off on the return. Then they got the guarantee and audit assistance just like if the return was prepared in the office. I never did one of these when I worked there because I would not put my name on a return when I did not personally interview the clients.

  Sometimes clients using the software at home would realize they were over their heads and come into the office. In those cases you could easily import all the data they had already entered at home into the proprietary software used in the office. That was indeed a time saver and really impressed the clients.

  It sounds like Liberty is finally trying to offer itself to the DIY market. I think it’s way too late in the game. Block is so far ahead of them, and TurboTax is far ahead of them both. (For a couple of years now TT has had CPAs and EAs available by phone for a fee.) Why would anyone thinking of doing their taxes themselves click on Liberty as opposed to the other major brands they have at least heard of?

  I wouldn’t worry about this development hurting the brick and mortars much. Many people wouldn’t think of tackling taxes themselves, which is why the numbers using paid preparers have remained fairly steady at around 60% for years despite the availability of boxed software. And once they mess up, they will never again attempt it themselves. Some of my most loyal clients were once DIY until they got that IRS letter, or some unusual situation brought them into the office and they discovered they’ve been cheating themselves out of credits or whatever and were paying way too much in taxes.

• For those of you who are on this forum touting how to be successful and how you’ve made 10,000 dollars by today –

  First, you need way more then 500 clients to stay healthy, and make a living – and NOT working for Liberty at slave prices. You give away 20 cents out of dollar and that’s only if you manage to NOT get over the 11,000. You can’t make it off of 500 returns. 1500 a month plus electric water and employees means life is hard.

  As for not opening another office, you have no idea what you are saying. Liberty sells you a plan, they say if you do this then this will happen. They do not discourage you from buying more territorities. Your only hope of making money is to open a store in an area that REALLY has a low income. If you have a high income area, 250 is really all you will get. They do not do their homework and get angry with you when you tell them they are wrong.

  Most of the AD’s suck. They have no desire to help you make money, not doing their job. Hell I went an entire 1.5 years without seeing or hearing from my AD other then to be told that a less then 1% disgruntled rate is not good enough. He had no desire to talk to me or the actual zee and had no desire to help us grow, he could sit in his comfy home ignoring us or only visit the zees he felt was worth visiting. Why would he care he’s getting his commission, pay or whatever you want to call the blatant theft.

  Life savings was lost and for the life savings poured into the promise of help and guidance, which was never received we have to walk away from a client base that we built and nurtured. We get to start over and try to make a living. They didn’t pay us for that list, yet they call it their client list. Not theirs. I do not recall them here everyday nurturing, driving miles, answering phone calls, walking through the street glad handing. No .. where were they??? Not here with me. That’s for damn sure.

  As for you sir who have “earned” 10,000 by now. You are so full of it. First, efiling doesn’t start until Jan 31. 2) the clients coming in are ICA/ERC clients and the bank products aren’t coming in until sometime around the 15th of Feb at the earliest. So unless someone is pumping your store, you aren’t making that kind of money

  So moral here – DO NOT DO IT!!! Put me down for that class action suit. Promises made, promises broken. Money taken with false pretenses, AD’S who don’t care and not working but wanting to get paid. Paying for marketing that doesn’t exist, paying back the client if they are unhappy for any part of your service, even if it’s free. The list is endless – so think of this – think of everything that can go wrong – and then multiply it by 10 then and only then will you understand. We aren’t talking a few thousands over 500K was poured into the business to make it grow – we followed the plan, we did everything and then some. So please spare me the – if you tried crap – because we tried, we worked our asses off. Our thank you is get the f out and we keep your list

• Next Gen is the online service, so what I understood, you can log onto a website and input tax returns. So you can operate from any computer. LTS would own everything, It seems its like a lot of what other companies have been doing being web based programs.

• Thanks Screwd – Great post and so true. Mike or Bill or anyone, how many zees actually do over 500 returns per store? Because if you are not the first zee in a low income territory, and get a middle class to higher class territory, 250 is really pushing that territory. LTS has a bad rep. in the middle class due to their waver’s and pushing free returns.

• Excellent post, screwd. You told it like it REALLY is. Not how they want you to perceive it is. Welcome to our world and this forum.

  Franchizee: I had multiple stores, and two had over 500 returns.

  You do all this work, I mean hard work to market and build up an honest, happy client base and you NEVER hear anything positive from Corporate or god forbid your AD, except negative………like the god damned “notices to cure” if you forget to dot the i or cross the t.

  And they are NEVER your clients!! :( What a scam. Hewitt takes all your money and gives you nothing in return. He will take money from anyone that’s breathing with a wallet.

  NOTHING is going to change unless this man is stopped. He has built a comfortable life for himself on everyone else’s misery. He has built a company that cheats, robs, and does NOTHING positive for the franchisee. Fee intercept, notices to cure, markups on Liberty logo’d items $5,000%, negative, negative, negative. Wonder why he purchased an off-shore bank? Hmmmmmmm

  It was a tough business years ago when I was involved and it’s even tougher now with time controls and really a million controls in place. Anyone that “thinks” that this is their own business……………it’s a Nazi-like regime as far away as owning your own business as it can possibly be, with rules upon rules. They are squeezing the franchisees harder now than ever.

  screwd: you summed up the atmosphere there very well, it sucks. People: save your money, your time and energy and go elsewhere. You will be forever grateful for NOT investing in this god awful franchise.

• Thanks SanFran – Did your other office do less than 500? I had multiple offices neither got close to 500 each. 600 is the number they sell you on, yet never came close to that number. Of course I did the system the first couple of years, then had to scale back due to the money drain and just waiting for leases to end to leave this hunk of junk of a scam.

  Screwd, were you a “successful” franchisee according to LTS? I am noticing the
  successful ones are up past their ears in LTS debt not with standing from banks, home equity loans and personal loans. San Fran you were considered successful in LTS eyes weren’t you?

  My places were not, most of the time, never even showed up on the list EVER. I was one of the entities that was a secret failure! But man be late on paying that royalty and bam, email forthcoming looking for a handout!

• I don’t want to give away my identity any more than I have already. I had more than 3 offices. Only two had more than 500. One of them actually did less than 100 returns.
  I was considered very successful in LTS’s eyes for the two that did over 500 because they were significantly over 500.

  “hunk of junk of a scam” is perfectly fitting. No other way to describe them. My ultimate dream is for the company to fold and for the man at the helm to go to jail for a very, very long time.

• I was first licensed as a CRTP for the tax year 2006 as a result of having taken the Liberty Tax Service Tax Course and had a great teacher Mr.Smith. For three years I worked in a great office located in North Park and each year we were seeing office growth. I worked for a franchisee who was a perfect boss and truly believed in following the corporate model. She had lived kind of far from the office and so I actually had the opportunity to manage her office and by the third year I was really feeling like I was finding career sucess as a tax preparer. In reality the zees cant really afford to pay their preparers over $10.00/hr with all of the other overhead that they have, and with really only 4 months of income, I’ve seen year after year more and more of the zees either selling or getting kicked out of their franchise because they have been unable to pay their bills.
  Since that third year as a CRTP, I continued each year to get licensed and find another Liberty Tax San Diego Location to work at. I have now worked for four different zees and each year am finding more and more owners whom are frustrated with corporate royalties and unable to grow their territories. One of the main issues I think is that the franchise agreements that are in place do not account for the differences in the high cost of living and cost of running a business that exists here in California. For years I’ve listened in on the conference calls that corporate organizes for its zees and pases off as a morale booster for any struggling zees throughout the season and I have found that all of the really successful offices are pretty much in the middle of America states or on the East Coast where rent is so much cheaper and wavers aren’t restricted like they are here in California. Since wavers are the preferred method for Liberty Tax Advertising (and I do agree that they are an effective tool for office exposure), they actually become a quite costly expense for the Southern Californian Zee, but without the employment of a waver 24/7 the office will hardly be able to survive because it seems as though Corporate does not pay for any advertising or so called Branding of its name. I see that its the individual offices that are really bearing the burden of marketing for their office and yet still have to pay so much back to corporate as per the franchise agreements.
  I feel for the zees I’ve worked for here in San Diego, CA and have seen really dedicated ethical business owners suffer from their involvement with Liberty Tax Corporate. I’ve also realized my own financial demise, as I dedicated myself year after year to Liberty Tax Service as a whole and had my own dreams of being a franchise owner. I mistakingly thought that that could be acheived as soon as I could build up enough capital to buy my own Liberty Tax franchise and make more than an hourly wage that in actuality would reflect a year end total that would be less than poverty level. It’s my fault for not overcoming the hurdles of unemployment that came each year as I tried to make a full time job out of a part time seasonal job with no benefits and an unexplained attachment to Liberty Tax Corporate. I have sadly realized that the cost is way too high and would never yield profitable, at least not in California. I am also so dissappointed in myself for thinking that each year I was advancing along my career path because of all of the tax knowledge I was gaining, because any one who knows and likes to do taxes must agree that the more you learn about taxes the more you realize how much more there is to learn. Tax code is huge, and because each year has its changes each year brings more to be learned. I have spent alot of time and money to be a tax preparer since 2006, and now in 2014 after having seen my W2 from 2013 am finally realizing that I shouldn’t have dedicated myself to these various tax offices like I did. Partly due to my inability to detach myself from believing that I was in a career job, yet each year not really making any money doing it, I am finding myself poverty stricken and in need of overcoming the mindset of being a seasonal employee. I have been locked into the occupation of tax preparation that has hindered my ability to get a full time job with benefits. For years doing taxes felt good because I was happy to help families and offer mediation that could help others get back on track with the IRS etc. … but now I’m looking back and finding that though I feel like a professional I am so broke and have not established any future financial security.

• SanFran – Thanks that what I thought I remembers.

  I am sorry Candace of your experience. At least you have a w-2 and received some money, how low it was in retrospect. I paid people but still had nothing to show for it but bills after bills after bills. Candace you might want to consider starting your own business later as time goes on. You at least have the tax knowledge in your favor.

  We had to wait until leases were almost up just to get out of this junker clunker. Thank goodness that came up finally!

• Thank you everyone for your very valuable information.

• Candace

  You have the knowledge of the tax code. No one can take that away from you. You need to try to find an independent or an HR Block or JH, and you can get hired eventually as an office manager at a branded location. It’s not enough for a full year’s income, but your skills can be in demand from Jan to April.

• A few false claims are being made by liberty franchisees, namely how much money they have made so far this season. I usually count my money made when it is in the bank, not pending for transmission to the IRS. You simply don’t know IF these returns will go through or not. I still am not seeing a great deal of W2’s coming through either. I guess the liberty people are still quite delusional about their profits. Keep drinking the kool aid from screwitt.

• Several years ago we received an email from a Dan in California, showing his waiting room. Inside this waiting room were people waiting to get their taxes done, looked like an illegal shop. According to a phone call, these people file their taxes right after the first of the year. They ONLY have cash businesses and have to file Schedule C, which translates into large EIC. This was when the IRS allowed filings before the 15th of January. He also wrote 500 to 700 returns about the time the first efiling went through.

  One guy on this phone call goes, is that “legal”? Of course it is!! Of course it’s not. It is all refund fraud. I am waiting for Dan to go down, down and down. Of course Dan could be John Barilla or is John B. out of California too?

• Did anyone pay attention to the CEO of HR Block on Mad Money?

  This is the year for everyone and the competitors (including DIY software) to mess people’s taxes up and let Block clean house in 2015

  Pay close attention to how they are going back to basics. That is all they need to do.

  Trisha :-)

• Just wanted to say thanks for the laughs. You guys all sound like those idiots on Restaurant Impossible, Bar Rescue, and everything else where dumbasses think they can open a business because they used to visit that business, or it seems so easy. But good for you if you’ve opened your own successful practice.

  How about this, instead of crying about how horrible LTS is, why don’t you list the things specific about why the agreement is bad (actual %’s and clauses), and to tell people what to look out for, or why they could just open their own practice.

  You all sound like crybabies, but anyways, thanks for the laughs.

• FYI That Mike, is not the Mike that has been posting here for years. Hi name must be Mike SCREWITT.

• @Mike the sarcastic – It has been posted multiple times. I am sure you are one of the fraudulent tax offices. All you show is how bad this company is for people in general. You people are abusive if you talk negatively and truthfully about Screwitt and scambos, You show how being with this company is totally abusive and anyone who had 2 brain cells would not sign nor give them money.

  Thanks again for proving all our points by being your abusive self and talking down to anyone who disagrees with this junker clunker. We don’t need to state anything more, since you prove all our points. Great show!

• It shows how brainwashed your are Mike the sarcastic! Keep drinking the Kool-Aid.

• ^^Franchizee:

  Ignore them. He is one of the growing number of stooges. Up to five stooges now, and by the tone of the post, it’s all the same poster. As far as I am concerned from here on out, I will try my best to ignore them/him.

  The truth of the matter is that owning this franchise sucks royally. We don’t have to substantiate ANYTHING. Anyone with half a brain will keep their money and look to invest elsewhere. LTS will be going down, down, down. Sooner or later. I hope HR Block kicks their butt.

  You actually own NOTHING, except loan payments and employees salaries, rent and electricity. And some desks and computers. And lets not forget WAVERS! Yucch. (I thank goodness every day I’m out!!!)

  Let this ONE person who is happy, who insists on coming onto this forum to tell all of us why we are wrong and cannot possibly know anything say what he pleases. We cannot stop him, but we don’t have to address or acknowledge him either.

• I like New Mike much more than Mike-tard. Crybabies is the perfect way to describe you guys.

• Its true that fraud is a big part of LTS’s business! From the beginning, they encouraged us to get these false schedule C’s early and charge them exorbitant fees. After all, its not their money,but the government who pays. Also, does anyone know the street value for a dependent? I heard its around $800, but I’m sure Screwitt and company know the real amount. These guys just get more creative in how they can falsify returns and take money from the taxpayers.

• ^^Yes, I know that and I’m sure many other current and ex-franchisees know that too. Trisha: Are you able to give us an encouraging update? I would LOVE to see a negative story about LTS on a 60 minutes, 20/20 or the like news report……..sounds like they’ve been scrambling to “un-do” many of the training models that built their business brand to begin with! Oh poor them, not!

  Where are bill, nchillbilly and greg? Gotta love those numbers!! :)

  Up Hill Battle: You are so welcome! :)

• I check here everyday. I understand that your reruns per office cannot be calculated with precision. But your numbers about some offices doing about 150 (some do 250) are incredibly helpful.

• New Mike – Here some numbers for you:

  HRB 14,505 million tax returns prepared (5,598 m by franchise operations) filed in 2013, average net fee 198 dollars, 10.718 locations (4,507 franchisees). Average for franchise office 1,242. For the 30% royalty the franchisee gets a well run company with #1in market share and brand recognition in its field and provides a national advertising campaign. Downside only 79 franchises for sale in the country.

  Liberty 2,116,000 tax returns filed in 2013, average net $180.00, 4028 locations, average of 525 per location. 14% royalty and a 5 advertising fee for 19% total. The franchisee gets a company that is 3rd in market share among the top 3. marginal brand recognition and no national advertising campaign and over 3,222 comments, mostly negative, on unhappy franchisee.

  Keep drinking the Kool-Aid!

• @Texastee – Prior to Danny leaving the company he was on a phone call for our area. He was telling us how to make permanent clients out of the EIC people. He said the following:

  Go to Section 8 housing and have meeting telling the resident’s how their friend’s kids can become their cousins, nieces and nephews. Those people will be your tax clients forever. Of course a couple of people said that was illegal. He shortly left the company within weeks.

  Of course now you must show you are related and you are the guardian of those kids. I have had people tell me that they have always taken these kids and now they have to prove up. Lost another client. They would go to one of “top gun” store and write the case with no questions asked. Those stores would write 500-1000 tax returns within 2 weeks. Now tell me, how much due diligence goes into each return. Then they live off the letter’s they created charging people again for their piss, poor, shoddy work. Of course, the money is not flowing now, so even the frauds are going to process their own taxes through any one of the “free” tax places.

  LTS and H & R and Jackson Hewitt are in to making money during the first peak at the expense of the tax payer.

• For everyone’s benefit, this was sent to me from another Zee who also lost his franchise. Feel free to attend. The email didn’t give the address, but it should not be hard to find out. It is an LTS franchise seminar I am sure.

  When: 9:30am to 4:00pm, Tuesday, February 25th
  Where: New Orleans, LA
  Featuring: John Hewitt, Liberty Tax founder and CEO

• I would love to be a heckler in that meeting!

• Sales must be slow!

• It’s the International Franchise Association Convention. You should go to their
  website and see the franchise participants. There’s a long list of franchises I never heard and their all there trying to figure out ways to sucker someone into buying one of their franchises.

  What one was a good business model for building a brand is now simple a business model for making money by selling franchises. See a trend, create some type of system and franchise it. Just look at all the frozen yogurt places that popped up.

• This is so Hewitt can teach other scumbags how to defraud consumers and the government. He is quite expert in that!

• That’s even better. Signing up is probably free, and standing in front of their display to caution would-be people what a absolutely horrible opportunity this is would be a hoot. I live too far away, but hoping anyone within driving distance will take the time to attend.

• Well I wish I had found this site before I spent money to become a zee. Please feel free to email me if a class action suit is filed. I will be glad to sign up. I don’t know if its possible but I’m going to try and find a law firm who can help us. I do know I was lied to right to my face several times when I was first interested in liberty. I know when I went through their training everything was peaches and cream. When I needed help trying to market enough to get close to the 600 returns I didn’t get a return call. I do know some of these things should be against the law. I know it sure sounds like the old bait and switch used years ago. I know I feel bad for the zees who didn’t have tax knowledge or even office knowledg because last year was a joke. Feel free to email me and if your interested in a class action suit we need to become a group to compare notes in real time. Thanks [redacted]

• Hey if anyone goes that lives close to me can I hitch a ride? I’m about 4 hours from there. I can’t afford to go on my own since I lost my money with liberty. I’m sure I’m not in the worst situation after liberty but I bet I’m close. I was promised the moon by the ad and got donky shit. I lost all my savings and then some so if we can do anything to stop this company I’m in. I would bet if we could do the research we would find zees who died by commiting suicide or something like a heart attack. I know because blieve me this loss took me to a dark place. The reasons I picked liberty was because of the help, the sales in my area of block the advertising, the loan products jth was approved for in my state and a few other things that turned out to be lies. There has to be a way to fight back and stop them. [redacted] feel free to email with ideas. Idont have money to fight but I got time.

• To Candice:

  I applaud your determination to make your career as a tax preparer work. I am a CPA and former LTS franchisee. Take your experience and go to work for the IRS. If I could do it over again, I would have trashed my tax prep career and gone to work for Uncle and been retired by now with golden benefits. Having experience on the client side of the table would have been invaluable as an agent. Working for LTS all these years has given you what I consider to be similar to what a doctor interning in an emergency room gets in terms of experience: anything and everything! You ave an amazing amount of experience – and smarts. Uncle needs agents.

  In defense of LTS, they gave us a business model, jump-started a business it would have taken years to build and were responsive in our territory. After year two, we were well on our way with over 550 returns (unemployment rate in our county was 2.7% at the time). Then the recession hit (unemployment zoomed to 13% overnight), and our great customers were unemployed. I can’t blame LTS for that. You can buy a list of returns transmitted by all the various businesses in your zip, and everyone saw their business cut by 1/3 – 1/2. Using wavers for marketing definitely worked and was responsible for at least 25% or our new business.

  Please keep in mind that it is a 4 month a year business with 12 month a year expenses. We stayed open all year 4 days a week and caught business because our competitors were closed or unavailable.

  Good luck and God bless!

• Why not find an independent tax company that is growing and be part of the team. Eventually purchasing part of the business. I know an office at 525 W.Gloucester that recently got built. They have unfilled offices ready for tax preps and/or Enrolled Agents.

• Going independent is the way to go. You will have no high expenses for royalties nor corporate dweebs looking over your shoulder telling you what to do. You control your destiny, not thugs like liberty tax and hewitt.

• Candice: take Taxastee’s advice and go independent. It might be to late for this season but you already have a P-Tin. if you have a computer and printer you could purchase some software, get an e-fin number and work right out of your house. Taxact has a bundle federal and state program with unlimited e-file for $579.00 Talk to your friends, contact former customer’s hand out fliers. If you did 50 returns with an average net fee of $150.00 that would be $7,500.00 dollars. After expenses you probably net $6,000.00. That’s more then most 1st year franchisees will make.

• Candice, If you have completed any corporate returns for Liberty, you have used Drake. Drake is a great tax program that can be purchased for $300 on a pay for return basis, or $1500 for full copy. Drake will give you the ability to do personal and corporate returns. The only problem is that you need to back up the returns on a separate drive. Drake does not do it if you have a problem.

• Jackson Hewitt coupons are everywhere. Good for them. Free places are packed. Liberty not at all.

• Free places are packed! !! DOING RETURNS WITH 80000 plus AGI. Incredible. ..

• Went by a Liberty tonight and no one was there. Only the clown in the liberty suit and some preparers. This is gotta be costing the franchisees dearly.

• I just called one literally 5 minutes ago. I asked how much. I said one w2 one child. They said for 50 bucks they will charge me 350! Hilarious! !!

• For some Zees it has been slow. They have been producing all these bank products but nothing in the bank. Starting Sat, fee intercept starts and they will still have no money. What kind of business is this??? Oh ya, just a way for Screwitt to make money without lifting a finger, but to give his BS everyday on the daily call. Just follow my 11 steps and you will be wealthy, wealthy, wealthy, uh uh kinda, sorta. If you aren’t doing 10 returns start giving away free returns along with the $50 CIF and $50 send a friends. I mean what ever dude!!

  Original Mike – That $350 will cover all their costs and all the send a friends you send them. I mean really????

• I love reading this stuff and knowing that I do NOT have these kind of problems anymore! I’m so happy to be out of the Liberty disaster!

• Yes, this time of the year Hewitt will have your office so over-staffed due to the inflated projections your worthless AD dreamed up. The projections are artificially high so you go into the season thinking you will do 600 returns. The real pain and costs are about to slap the new Zees in the face. So much hype talking about the PEAK season coming up, but the truth is it will come and go in a flash, and you will have nowhere near the number of returns you projected.

• Ok – According to John we are in PEAK!! If you aren’t doing 10 returns a day, you are going to not make it! Start doing free returns….Seriously people, what is with these jokers.

  How many Zees on this forum did not have a first and second peak? I had one office with only a first peak (well not really) and another office with only a second peak. So I had multiple territories that almost made one territory.

  Thanks for the update on how they come up with their crazy numbers. Never even saw 600 returns EVER! They oversell and then blame the zee for not following John’s Top 11 – What a bunch of jack wagons.

  Plus LTS has such a bad rep in many areas, that having a LTS sign is actually a liability not an asset.

• The only one who is having a peak are the free places. I have been by block jh liberty and everyone is dead. I love it….screwitt wants free..well he got it…dumb flok…

• Yup, same here, all the retail tax offices are empty! Giving away FREE stuff only attracts more people that want FREE stuff. I never understood how they would tell the Zee’s that by doing free returns you will increase your business. All it did was increase the traffic of people wanting more free returns and jumped out of their seat when they were told the price!

• Yup! With independents, do the “taxpayers” shop or if they come into your office, do they usually buy the return you complete? With LTS and H&R Block, people if they are able to seem to shop around.

  Spot on as usual Balancetrend.

• When there were RALs, people flocked to the chains because they wanted the money NOW if not sooner. Since much of the refund was EITC, many didn’t care how much it cost because they were still getting thousands of dollars. Now that RALs are gone, people only shop to see who will get them the biggest refund. If the tax code is followed, the refund should be exactly the same no matter where they go. The only difference between preparers should be the cost of tax prep.

  Word spreads fast in communities, and when someone finds out that Liberty or VITA is doing free returns, lots of people will start going there. Block and JH don’t usually do free. A client who gets tax prep for free one year is going to balk at paying for it the next. Definitely not a way to build up one’s clientele.

  I work at an independent, and when people call to see how much their return will cost we tell them we are not accepting new clients. We don’t do shoppers and thus never complete a return that doesn’t end up being paid. Liberty zees pay rent, utilities, software, supplies, employees, and royalties. Why would they give their work away, especially when it primes clients to expect the same price next year? When they don’t get it, of course they’re going to go somewhere else free.