LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Complaints

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

• Jim wrote: “unhappyfranchisee.com is going to comply with any subpoena from Liberty to support a defamation suit.”

  Jim: Please refrain from speaking on behalf of UnhappyFranchisee.Com… especially since you obviously do not know us or our legal track record.

  In more than eight years of publishing, we have only been subpoened once regarding commenters identities for a defamation suit and it wasn’t by Liberty Tax. We are vigorously opposing it and have enlisted the legal firepower of two top non-profit 1st amendment organizations, PublicCitizen.Org and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). We are also receiving support from the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

  UnhappyFranchisee.Com and these dedicated organizations understand that the right to anonymous speech is essential and worth fighting for, and is especially critical in franchising where bullying franchisors have managed to chill free speech so effectively.

  Commenters should refrain from defamatory statements by making clear when they are expressing opinions (“In my opinion…”) and making sure that they can substantiate statements of fact. For more info on what constitutes defamation, read:

  https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/defamation

  The Federal Trade Commission established that it is critical for prospective franchisees to be able to hear of the experiences and opinions of current and former franchisees of a given company. We’re here to facilitate that communication, and anyone who checks our record knows we don’t give in to intimidation and we don’t back away from a legal fight that challenges our collective 1st Amendment rights.

  Thanks to all those who help others by sharing their opinions and educating others by commenting on UnhappyFranchisee.Com.

  ADMIN

• Yes, I’m a “she”, dude. I have been posting here for @ 3 years or so and every single thing I have written is true. It has taken me the courage this long to just say what I said last night. This company destroyed my life. Yes, of course I have facts to substantiate my comments. Those facts have been given to the appropriate people. I am not alone as others have posted very similar experiences. Yeah, so the company is large: does that mean they are moral? FAAAAAR from it, dude. Barf villa can come back as many aliases as he wants to, but it doesn’t change the personal experience I had or thousands of others have had. Negative all the way, dude.

  Thanks, ADMIN. This website has been a lifesaver for me and countless others. Yes, the franchise bullying that takes place is one for the record books. What an expensive and stressful lesson this has been on what NOT to do. All I know is if this website was around when I first researched Liberty Tax, I would have stepped away. It was intriguing because the man at the helm was “so experienced” in Tax……now I see how that in itself is so far from the truth. He is a master salesman, a manipulator and a scam artist, not a Tax guru. And he spies on everything the franchisees do. It is NOT a moral company by any stretch of the imagination.

• Thanks Admin and SanFranDan,
  Admin, it is admirable what you are doing to give information to the public about pitfalls in franchising. How can I support the cause? I like to put my money where my mouth is. Think about this potential investors; many of us are screaming from the mountains, telling you about the problems you will have investing in a Liberty franchise, you have been warned! This is free advice, be smart and think long and hard before plunking done your hard earned cash.

  SanFranDan, you are great! For new readers, she has been bullied on this site by supporters of Liberty. Sad but true, these peoples ethics have no boundaries.

• Just found the contribution icon at the top of the page!

  This is a call out to those of us that are in this fight for truth; give to help the good guys trying to inform the public about what the issues are with these franchisors.

• Sad but true:

  Thank very much for your contribution. It is much needed and much appreciated.

  I always hate to push for contributions because so many who post on this site are in dire economic situations, but if you have saved money because of this site or can make even a $25 donation, it will be much appreciated.

  We just lost some traffic from Google because we haven’t upgraded to be more mobile-friendly. We really need to get that softward update done asap and its not something we can do without some paid help.

  Anyway, here’s the contribution page… thanks all!

  http://www.unhappyfranchisee.com/support-franchise-fairness/

  Keep the comments coming… Liberty has almost made the prestigious 5,000 comment club!

• Thanks, Sad but true. I went through hell & back with this franchise for years & years. Everything I’ve posted here is the truth. I will not tolerate Barf villa or Jim or anyone else here calling me a liar. It just isn’t so.

  This ‘corporation’ has gotten away with way too much for way too long. It’s really time to bring them to justice once & for all. If the IRS is cracking down on stores, well it’s about time. Hope Corporate is next.

  This site is called “Unhappy franchisee” for a reason. It’s more than complaints. It’s supposed to help others decide whether or not this franchise would be a good investment for their hard earned money or not.

  “In my opinion”, I would say emphatically NO

• Liberty Tax employees at 1911 S French Ave Sanford Florida 32773 are telling me my tax return has been offset. It has been over three weeks now and the I.R.S. still does not know anything about an offset concerning my social security number. I feel that I am being defrauded of my income taxes.

• Mr. Yates. If you have your SSN, Filing Status and original refund amount, you can go onto http://www.IRS.gov. On the right side, look for “Wheres my Refund”. Click through the next two, and enter your information above. Once you submit it, the IRS will give you your refund status and if there is any offset.

• Jim wrote: “unhappyfranchisee.com is going to comply with any subpoena from Liberty to support a defamation suit”

  Ahhh.. the threats..you operate under the threats. One more reason to run like hell from this joke of a franchise.

• @ZeeOut – You’re correct. Everyone associated with this company are bullies. They are there worst enemies!

• Well guys, we found out from Admin that there is no such subpoena. What may have bothered Jim was that there has been fraud, that he could not deny, by two Top Guns. This, of course, is not good and the Liberty’s name is tarnished. Sure, others have done the same thing but this comment site relates to Liberty so keep them as the subject matter here.

  I asked this before and would like a pro-Liberty commenter to let us know if Liberty is paying back the U.S. Treasury the 19% royalties and ad fees they received from fraudulent return prep fees? You can say that Liberty is innocent but profiting from fraud is not right. I am surprised that the IRS does not try to recoup some of their losses from Liberty Corp. I understand that the prep fee is not supposed to be related to the customers refunds but we know that higher refunds justifies (in some minds) a higher prep fee. Also, are the taxpayers so ignorant to not understand their returns were incorrect? What about ghost taxpayers that do not exist? Were there any of those? You would think that both the franchisee and Liberty would need to explain all of this to the IRS. I am not a fraudster so I don’t know how all of this works.

  I believe Liberty should concentrate on putting controls in place to identify fraud. Less focus on suing former franchisees and more focus on repairing the Liberty image. Companies can turn things around, but they have to want to do it.

• Was very interested in buying a franchise until I saw the operations of a local office on Curryford rd in Orlando. I would like to speak to the founder and express some concerns we have.

• It looks like the stock is taking a beating today. Perhaps the market woke up to the shenanigans of John Hewitt?

• Fastest growing? Not anymore
  Biggest by 2020? In your dreams
  How’s that stock doing?
  I guess Hewitt has nobody to blame but himself for his failure
  2 maybe 3 years I predict Hewitt retires and the company goes belly up
  The major individual holders have been selling the stock like crazy
  No purchases only sales
  It’s about over IMO

• The chickens are coming home to roost! It must be that all the franchisees didn’t follow the system……..or maybe the system sucks! Hahaha!

• Ralph, read the most current posts before you decide to invest in Liberty.

  http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/liberty-tax-service-reports-us-tax-results-through-april-17th-20150430-01572

  Preliminary Tax Season 2015 Results
  U.S. Tax Returns
  2015 2014 Change
  Offices 1,830,000 1,818,000 0.6 %
  Online 45,000 173,000 -16.2 %
  Total U.S. Returns 1,975,000 1,991,000 -0.8 %

  Not good, the overall is a negative.

  More than likely, Liberty will be losing hundreds of franchisees. They lost Syed, I wonder what these numbers look like, minus those returns.

  Bad investment, very, very bad investment. If anyone buys into a losing entity, shame on you!

• Maybe JH’s $50 Wal-Mart Gift Card for All or their small but more available RAL took a bite out of Liberty’s results???

• Yes, IRS and public at large; Liberty Tax’s return count most likely includes those fraudulent returns from Maryland, Detroit, and Chicago. If so, will there be an investigation into Syed (Detroit and Chicago) and Liberty or just Syed?

  The taxpayers are the losers here. When John Doe Tax, Inc. does fraudulent returns, he is totally responsible, as he should. be. When a franchisee of Liberty prepares fraudulent returns, the franchisee is the only one responsible? What gives here? All tax returns from franchisees flow through Liberty to the IRS. They of course cannot know which returns have fraud and which don’t. But, they should be paying some fines for not adequately monitoring this. They knew the IRS was interested in certain franchisees and what did they do? Maybe they helped the IRS. Anyway, this lead one to believe that you are best to go it alone as an honest tax preparer and business.

• The most important thing to note is John Hewtitts credibility is GONE, BAM, OUT THE DOOR, ADIOS…all of us with a brain knew the ACA was going to be a BUST!! I guess his inner forecasting and brilliance should be a warning to all of the current and future zees…your AD will likely want you to spend more money on wavers etc……which will not help you…..get out now while you can!!! LIBERTY/JOHN WILL ALWAYS BE NUMBER 3 BECAUSE THEY PUSH A LOT OF NUMBER 2!

• John did a very good job on selling the Zees and stockholders that ACA was going to be a boom for the tax professional industry. John was forecasting an increase in both tax returns and fees pushing to the Zees to expect an 20% increase in returns and higher fees. Once the final numbers are released you will notice the average office count was down not up.

  Instead with additional offices opening, and Siempre Tax, instead of increasing in returns Liberty actually went the opposite direction both in returns and in fees. Yet they are busing selling everyone that they are fastest growing tax service.

  Until Liberty Corporate begins to do real national advertising and truly begin changing the way Liberty advertises, Liberty’s growth will continue to stagnate. When consumers see Liberty’s Statue of Liberty they see a clown. This does not represent a professional company or service. This type of advertising does not promote mid season clients.

  Liberty really needs to look at HR Blocks adds and notice how professional the adds are and the group that they are marketing to. The low income clients are a dying breed, there are to many free tax services within the communities and online that are providing these individuals alternative choices. HR Block is targeting the midseason clients, after all the midseason last for approximately 9 weeks, not just the first 2 weeks of tax season and the final 3 days.

  If you notice the IRS numbers that were released earlier in February, the biggest loss in returns for professional preparers was in the early part of tax season. Liberty’s focus is only on the very early clients, and the last couple of days.

  It was easy to tell that there was trouble within Liberty Corporate when you were seeing all of the insiders selling off stock in March. They knew once the end of the tax season numbers were released Liberty’s stock would take a beating. I am not sure if this is considered selling based on inside information. These officers that sold their stock knew that Liberty’s return count was going to be down.

• Ralph Collazo: You should listen to your concerns and stay away from this company/franchise.

  Please read their most recent press release where they admit that they had to restate the number of tax returns that they reported filed online last year The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) said they could only count returns filed that where actually accepted by the IRS. This is not the first time the company has massaged the numbers In 2013 the company was required by the SEC to restate their 2011 and 2012 financial statements.

  Speaking to JH will only provide you with more spin. Your best option is to walk away.

• NCHILLBILLY, I don’t think Liberty wants to do national advertising for two reasons; 1. They may not have enough money to sustain even one month’s worth of national advertising 2. This would be less money to keep for the owner of the company, if they did national advertising.

  Today’s news certainly is an indication of what future Liberty has, not good. Their on-line tax prep numbers are paltry. 2015 is going to be chalked up as a real loser for Liberty.

  We are not seeing the Liberty supporters on this site because there is no good news. They at least are honest enough to see that it is hard to find any victories in a tax season that saw little growth in their storefront returns, losing growth in their on-line returns, two Top Guns gone forever, a book (about JH) that came out during tax season that did not help their return count, and their own stockholders bailing on them.

  It is hard to understand what is in the minds of a company that goes after former partners with lawsuits, spews make believe statements of future hopes (ACA to bring growth in returns and #1 by 2020) to entice new franchisees, and has Top Guns commit fraud. Why would anyone want to invest and partner with them?

  John is not hurting as much as his franchisees. He may have increased revenues for this past tax season. It is such a tangled web of what on earth is really going on with Liberty. The home office always wins while the franchisees try to keep things going. This much we know; it truly is a one-sided relationship, with the winning side always being the franchisor (Liberty).

• Numbers for Liberty as of 4/15/2015;

  1,830,000 reported returns
  4300 stores, mentioned in the article below;

  http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/liberty-tax-service-reports-us-tax-results-through-april-17th-20150430-01572

  1,830,000/4300 = 426 returns per store, on average.

  426 x $200 average net fee (I am being generous here) = $85,200 average revenue per store.

  $85,200 x 19% royalties and ad fees = 16,188
  $85,200 – 16,188 = 69,012
  $69,012 is left to cover payroll, rent, supplies, marketing, utilities, and any other expenses. You may end up with a small profit.

  Since I used a high average net fee to compute my numbers, I was being positive, in favor of the franchisee.

  Some franchisees do greater than 426 returns per tax season, meaning that others do less. Usually the ones doing less are in the 1 to 3 years of their initial five year contract. These franchisees will close down before year five or tough it out hoping it will turn around. Because the average retention rate is around 40% to 50%, they will need to keep getting new customers and hopefully maintain their return count from the previous year. For those whom stay five years and get out, all they did for five years was lose about 80k to 100k and build up Liberty’s client base.

  I told you in my last post; the franchisor is on the winning side, always. So, if you are interested in buying a territory, be sure to do your homework and do not expect to get rich.

• Another way to look at Liberty’s 2015 numbers is that each office only gained 5.11 returns per office.

• Block online, desktop, and mobile application returns up 8.2%. Block assisted returns down -4.6%. Excuses abound for Block and Liberty as to why office returns had a poor year.

  The storefront tax prep franchise business is slowly dying. Consumers cannot afford high prep fees, especially when they can do their own returns online with plenty of helps.

• Trouble;
  You forgot that every office gives away 50-100 returns every year. You have just adjusted your Gross Income down by $10-20K.

  So take your $69K
  Less free retunrs -$10K min
  Rent $24K min.
  Advertising $10K min.
  You are already less than $25K before lights, heat, internet, and other assorted costs.. Rice and beans anyone ?

• You can make a profit on $85k per year. In the range of $20 to $30k. Be concerned if you can’t raise your fees over $60,000. Your rent’s to high at $2,000 a month and don’t waste your money on $10,000 in advertising.

  Hrblock also down and no news on Jackson Hewitt. Bet it’s down. Very difficult to get to $80,000 to $100,000 unless fees are high.

• Skip the free returns except when necessary.

• @Guest – LTS “REQUIRES” high rents to make them look great! $,2000 a month in a high traffic areas is mandated by LTS corporate and the AD.

  Everyone with two brain cells, knows that $2,000 a month on a 14 week season is not going to be able to keep it going.

  LTS and H&R love the fast easy returns, which is exactly the market that is going to friends and families, who most likely took a class from LTS and H&R Block and now are charging fees to the same people, they are vying for. I had a couple of people who took my class, just so they could charge their people the money to do the tax return. But if you listen to John Hewitt, doing a tax class is the BEST thing since slice bread, except when you train others to steal your core business.

  What a genius buckwheat! What a moron.

• Tax classes are one of those added burdens on the franchisees. Liberty Corp. makes money by selling books that the franchisees need to resell to their students. With the generous government subsidies to the unemployed or those out of work, finding these students is difficult.

  A Liberty tax franchise is a year round business. After the tax filing deadline, you need to be open 8 hours per week. Come September tax classes begin and you are working more hours now until the next tax season ends, then back to your 8 hours per week until September. Don’t forget those fun budgets in May and the monthly GRR. So, it is a year round responsibility for the franchisees.

  In the end, if you make a small profit, you probably made less than minimum wages for a business no one will want to buy.

• Given the numbers above, at least the franchisee will qualify for EITC! OK, bad humor, but it needed to be said.

• Dr Zhivago, Funny!

  I can’t disagree that tax classes are a training ground for competition. But if your AD required $2,000 monthly rental space it ‘s time to speak up.

  Just read an article where HRBlock says part of the drop in returns is due to industry wide fraud. I think they are talking about fraudulent returns going to the online space or others.

  Very interesting.

• Guest;

  Find me a major street facing location in any major urban area for under $2K per month. I know because I am in real estate and rent them. Average strip mall store front rents in every major city in the country are well over $2500 with CAM charges, even the bad ones. You may be able to find off street, around the back, or single location buildings, but that is not what Liberty will allow. Strangely though, I have recently seen them get much more liberal on their location policies. I have seen them in old houses and a few other places that clearly did not fit their published policy. Wonder if the Franchise owner sent a picture of one in a strip mall, but rented something else. Either way, strip mall locations are not less than $2K per month.

• I agree that it would be hard to find a prime storefront for under 2K per month.

  However our numbers stated may also be wrong. If Liberty is acknowledging that the SEC is making them restate the number of returns for prior years, who is will to say they did not do the same thing this year?
  If you take the 1,830,000 returns this year, and give a 2% reject rate that would reduce the total number by 36,600 returns, or 9 returns per store avg.
  Some people might say I am talking peanuts, but to a small store that is an additional $1700.
  It is just something to think about.

• Liberty going public sure has given potential franchise buyers the needed information to make an intelligent, informed, decision on investing in a territory. Also, the experiences stated on this site by former franchisees is a big help too.

  I have to believe that Block’s and Liberty’s storefront results will scare away buyers.

• By the SEC making Liberty correct their return numbers from previous years,this may open up a class action lawsuit on false advertising as the fastest growing tax service. Liberty could be sue by competitors, current and ex-franchisees on misstating facts.

• Guest: When I say the decline in Liberty Tax online tax returns I thought a big part of it had to do with people filing bogus returns in the past that were prevented from doing it this year because of safeguards the IRS had put in place.

  When you think how important financial products are to Liberty and the fact that they are not held accountable by the IRS for the filing of online/office prepared returns. You can see they have no incentive to police these returns.

  NCHILLBILLY: I like your idea of a class action suite. By itself the restating of online returns from 2013 would not seem to warrant such action. But when you look
  at the overall pattern of abuse a class action suit is a real possibility.

• Its still interesting that nothing has happened to the Liberty directors that unloaded their shares before the reported bad news in the finances. How come they are not being arrested by the feds for insider trading? This seems to be a very flagrant example of insider trading and certainly should be a violation of some SEC rules. I guess Liberty again paid off the right people.

• Bill: I thought Liberty was re-stating Online returns to be accepted e-files only due to fraud _this year_ that was rampant. Fraudsters could use Liberty and other cheapie online sites to file numerous returns using others’ SSNs. If it gets rejected, the fraudster doesn’t care much. He just tries the next SSN in the pile. But Liberty shouldn’t (and apparently didn’t) count that completed and fraudulent return when it gets rejected.

• Jackson-Hewitt up 3% in returns (and 0.5% up in same store sales), and up 7% in revenue. After giving away $50 Wal-Mart Gift cards to new and prior clients all season, though, I’ve got to wonder how the expenses look.

  http://www.jacksonhewitt.com/Our-Story/Tax-Talk/Corporate-News/Jackson-Hewitt®-Reports-Strong-2015-Tax-Season/

• Jackson Hewitt publishes numbers that kick the ever loving crap out of liberty
  H&r block reports dividends that kick the crap out of libertys dividend

  Liberty fades to an even more distant third largest preparer

  Yet the stock is up 4%
  That’s called manipulation
  It’s easy to do with stocks that trade like penny stocks
  It’s hewitts ego
  He is in 3rd place out of three and by a long ways
  He can’t stand after 20 years he is still at the bottom and with the most recent season looks to stay there

• ^^^Still at the bottom…………yay.
  Don’t pass Go, go straight to jail

• Don’t overlook that some of those rejected returns were legitimate clients whose efiled returns were rejected because someone somewhere had already filed under their name and SS number. Those returns have to be paper filed, but they are legitimate returns and should be included in the number of returns prepared. Liberty’s numbers might not be as inflated as they look.

  We had nine cases of identity theft in our office this year, and with almost 200 on extension I fear that number will rise.

• Focusing back on the Liberty storefront model, SaraEA, could you comment on how your office did this year? Did you have an increase in returns?

  The Liberty franchise storefront will be the first to die out of the three top tax prep franchises. Block was down but it was probably as they stated, mostly due to the free 1040EZ that they did not have this year. Jackson Hewitt being up 3% is good, but their increase is a puny number of returns in the overall number of returns of the three top franchises combined. So, if JH got Block’s losses, they did not get all of them. Block’s 4% loss in office returns is a greater number of returns than JH’s and Liberty’s small storefront return increases.

  The IRS reported Tax Professional e-files increased 72,000 thru 4/17, or a small .1% increase from 2014. The self-prepared e-filings increased 2.725 million thru 4/17, or a 5.9% increase from 2014. The trend is more taxpayers are filing their own returns. The free tax filing software is adequate for taxpayers to use.

  The IRS stats bear out the overall decline in Blocks, JH, and Liberty’s combined number of returns. Liberty is the loser in this because they fail to have the wherewithal to offer incentives in this market. Block with come back next year with some promotion to get back the customers they lost. This is bad news for JH and Liberty. Liberty being be bottom rung in this industry will get stepped on and it appears to be a poor investment for individuals thinking about buying into this system.

  The numbers don’t lie. I was scoffed at when I said the ACA would not have an impact on this past tax season. I think the increase in self-prepared returns proved me right. Not boasting here but, to those potential investors, please heed the warnings of people who have seen this industry change. I and many others have warned you that now is not the time to buy a tax franchise territory.

• sad but true, I believe the focus of the tax prep industry has to shift from the NUMBER of returns prepared to the revenue earned from those returns, i.e., quality vs quantity. You asked if my office had an increase in number of returns prepared. Absolutely not, because we were not accepting new clients. Well, we took a dozen or two–mostly referrals from really good clients or attorneys or financial advisors we didn’t want to disappoint. We lost a few who moved or died (but we still have to do their 1041s), but we honestly have more work than we can handle.

  Block has seen the writing on the wall that lower-income clients who can no longer get fast refunds and are subjected to due diligence grilling are turning to DIY software or free sites. They used to serve middle-income clients but got caught up in the profit potential of RALs and EITC. Since those customers are going away, they can fall back on their history as “America’s tax preparer” and try to win those clients back. (So far I’m not impressed with their efforts, but they’ll figure it out.)

  At one time JH served middle-income clients too. Then they too got caught up in the easy money from offering loans to EITC clients and went bankrupt. They might be able to come back because at least some of their franchisees still have a more diverse client base. Liberty, on the other hand, is almost entirely built on the model of serving exactly those clients who are leaving paid tax prep firms.

  Think about which chain can handle the sale of a rental property (with depreciation recapture) or prepare a 1041 or 709 or FINCEN. Every single Block office will have someone who can do these returns or a premium office they can send them to. Established JH franchisees can probably get them done. How many Liberty offices can?

• Block has the resources but the fees at premium offices make these clients fair game for all with qualified preparers. If jh survives, so will liberty. Also dont forget the $50 give away is a liberty concept. Partnerships are the key to survival and surviving well. I agree quality,not quantity. It will be hard for all to adjust. Don’t think block will get a lot of those customers back.

• Thanks SaraEA, you offer good insights into the tax prep business.

  Liberty Corp. generates almost all of their income from the monies provided by their franchisees. These fees are; new franchisee territory purchase fees, 19% royalty and ad fees, interest on loans to the franchisees, etc. Liberty revenue is highly dependent on how well franchisees perform. Once the numbers of franchisees that leave, exceeds new ones added, over a period of several years, Liberty will fail. Liberty Corp. will not be able to sustain significant store losses.

  I am not saying Liberty will not be profitable. That is the sad part, Liberty Corp makes money and many franchisees are not making enough money to make it a worthwhile investment. Many new Liberty franchisees will fail because it is difficult to compete against Block, JH, and established mom and pops in their territories. Let me make this very, very simple. If Liberty had only one franchisee that was in their third year of business and had $50k in revenue. John H. would be Liberty Corporation’s only employee now (all that is needed) and he would get $13,500 ($11k min. royalty and 5% ad fee) and the poor franchisee would have $36.5k to make ends meet. John H. would probably outsource the prep software for $500 and net $13,000 for doing nothing. Multiply this scenario by 1000 franchisees (in similar situations) and Liberty Corp. now gets over 13 million for doing whatever it is they do for the franchisee. John can hire some help with that and spend time on TV and writing books touting his success. Wonderful, is it not?

  Well, back to reality now. A $50 give away by Liberty or JH is a joke. Most consumers know they will raise their tax prep fees to cover the $50. Block, JH, and Liberty will charge whatever prep fees they can get each individual taxpayer to pay. Sorta like when you buy a car. The inconsistencies with what they charge different customers with similar returns is a joke. The public will continue to learn that local mom and pops or businesses that SaraEA works for will give them a better service at the same or lesser price.

• Was a liberty franchisee for 4 years. Best year completed 1180 returns of which 220 were free. Grossed $200k. After franchisee fees rent payroll utilities bonuses etc.. netted about 60k. Not great but for 3.months work not too bad but I didn’t start a franchise to earn 60k. I wanted a yearly income and I didn’t want to have to find another job during the offseason.
  So i left. And started my own brand. 4 years later I’m netting $120k after expenses. I add on my own bank.product fees and my gross fees are.over 250k.

• The key question is did you learn anything significant from your franchised operation? Doom and gloom not coming but change is. I also make about $80k on $250k but I have now learned how to make more.

• Your own brand is the answer. Liberty follows an outdated system. There is no longer any money in low end tax returns. The real money will be those educated enough to know their way around the tax system. Those are the highest 10% of earners, not Liberty’s demographic. Hewitt can only make money on franchise fees, not tax returns. Keep that in mind…