LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Complaints

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

• Certainly not all franchisee’s are fraudsters. You still have to wonder why this happens every year at some Liberty locations. It may be that the fraudulent returns caused the real taxpayers to miss out on their refunds. IRS has enough to do without this monkey business.

• When a bad accident happens, lawyers look to sue anyone they can. Maybe taxpayers harmed by the fraudulent returns and the IRS should sue Liberty Corp. After all, they send the retutns to the IRS. Seems like their internal controls are not working this year too. Hmm…

• ^^Sad but true:

  You are SO right. Most franchisees, maybe all are not fraudsters. Wonder why this happens at some Liberty locations each year? Hmmmmm do I have some story to tell you! Maybe the IRS and all the states should be scrutinizing the franchise itself. What? The franchise could be in some way responsible for these fraudsters? NO, really?!?!? Hmmmmm Sounds like the internal controls and the internal pressures may cause some people at the top to commit fraud to keep their company a float. Just a very strong theory…..Hmmmmm do you think by any chance that the IRS itself could be in cahoots with the franchise? Hmmmmm one has to wonder…….I know the answers, but let’s just say YES, YES, YES (In theory, of course!) :(

• Between 2013 and today, franchisees in Georgia, Illinois, Mich. and now Maryland have been indicted or going to be indicted for fraud. This involves at least 18 known franchise locations and I’m sure there’s more. These kind of events support what people like Anne Fuller have always said that at the Corp. level these kind of actions were tolerated and even encouraged.

  The company’s PR person Martha Graham talked about the internal controls that the company has in place. I can understand that they can’t affectively review all returns but there should be perimeters in place to detect something of this size. The state says these 7 offices did 1,100 returns that are potentially fraudulent. The returns were done in a period of less then 10 days. If the company did a sampling size of 2 to 3 % of all returns filed by office it would be considered statistically valid and should catch something like this. Especially if they fine tune there system to pull returns that were in known fraudulent areas like schedule C income, excessive dependents and refunds amounts that were excessively high.

  Of course there main focus/motivation is the 14% royalty or fee intercept

  We all know this company is unethical. If I was the IRS I would set my sites on Mark B. Mark B. knows the interworking’s of this company and was instrumental in JTH Financial success during the 2014 tax season. It’s ironic after this success that the company conveniently replaced him in August of 2014. I personally think he resigned because of the unethical behavior but can substantiate it.

  This may not be a final nail in the Liberty Tax coffin but I believe it might be a final nail for their CEO. There is just to much history of failures to be ignored.

• You forgot several offices in South Carolina.

• Another Elite 18 under investigation for Fraud Comer Inc. Is this the rule rather than the exception for Elite 18 top Zees? John Hewitt keeps 19% plus bank fees on fraud filed returns. The taxpayer you and I are paying for this fraudulent activity and who gets off scott free? The client? No have to pay back IRS. The Zee? No banned from Tax Prep. The Zees employees? No also likely banned from Tax Prep pick a different line of work. John Hewitt gets off scott free and is laughing all the way to the Bank because he will just resell the fraud territory to another sucker given fictitious numbers and return counts. The whole industry and to a greater extent Liberty Tax has become a pile of shit and John Hewitt is sitting right on top with a big cheesy grin.

• I know that the corporate people at Liberty encouraged us to do fraudulent returns. They gave us “after hours” instruction in this practice. I attended several of them. They know that the word gets out in the community that a Liberty Tax office will maximize your refund, no questions asked. This has been going on at least from the inception of Liberty. Who’s to say they aren’t in bed with the IRS to entrap their own zees and collect the whistleblower reward? There is a pattern here, folks. This is smart by them because they make money on both sides and then churn a “successful” territory to more suckers.

  If this isn’t an example of widespread fraud, I’m not sure what is. What ever happened to the alleged IRS investigation? Something isn’t right here. Did the IRS give up or were they politically influenced.? Did their hard drives get erased? I’m sure Liberty’s have.

• Yes, now all of you are talking and thinking in the right direction. There is NO reason that Annie Fuller, Trisha Graebert, myself and many others would fabricate anything. We have nothing to gain except to tell the truth and of our own personal experiences. The ONLY gain I’m after is sweet revenge for the CEO and his cronies.

  My reason to even post on this forum since Day 1 was to warn people about the dangers of joining this franchise and I’ve never wavered from that message right along.

  It’s hard to spell out the horrific atrocities that are in store for you if you even question or rebel against that franchise for whatever reason. Why did Jackson Hewitt get rid of John Hewitt in the first place? Why did H & R Block? I seriously don’t know the answer to that, BUT if he did anything at all like he does at Liberty, he needs to be thoroughly investigated, which I know is currently happening. Just wish the process was faster.

• Let’s think this through to be fair to the MD offices. If they were all owned by the same franchisee, then we know we have a problem–no further thought required. If not, realize that no one has been arrested or convicted just yet. The state noticed an irregularity and is looking into it further. (I agree that corporate should have noticed before the state did.)

  As Texastee said, “word gets out in the community.” Years ago when I worked at a chain, we had an influx of “child care providers.” Apparently one came in with her bs, got away with it, and called the neighborhood. An alert receptionist picked up on it (no formal “internal controls”). She noticed the same guy seemed to be driving clients to the store. When she went to efile, she noticed an unusual number of returns had no withholding documents attached to the paperwork (W2s, unemployment etc.). She put two and two together and alerted the preparers. After that, we required child care providers to show us records of receipts, numbers of children in attendance each day, etc. The flood was dammed and they stopped coming in. (Since then due diligence requirements demand the preparer to record what records s/he saw for self-employed people.)

  It could be that fraudsters had their acts rehearsed weeks ago and descended on Liberty offices, knowing their preparers likely have less training than HRB folks. Some tax prep programs allow the boxes on the due diligence form to be prechecked, so the preparer doesn’t even ask the questions. (A big NO NO, as the IRS says it will not consider the forms to be valid in those cases.)

  The consequences are worse than Concerned Zee imagines. With fraudulent EIC claims, both the franchisee and preparer are fined $500 per occurrence. So those franchisees are going to lose a lot more than their initial investment, and the preparers who signed those returns are going to be in debt for the rest of their lives.

  At this point, I am willing to consider that the Liberty preparers were duped, that they didn’t have an alert receptionist like we did. If anyone hears more about this case, please share. I am most interested to know if the stores were owned by the same person. If so, Liberty will call it a “renegade” franchisee, but that excuse is getting old.

• Same as Sara EA, one of my offices had the same problem with a group of people only making $7,000 a year (with a W-2) and of course they have 2 children with different last names, who are “their” nieces and nephews! They happened to live with them EXACTLY 1 year at the time of filing.

  I took care of one person who did not have that situation, but ended getting multiples who did have that situation. Once I needed proof, they took their “toys” and went to another tax office. Usually a LTS or the H and R Block who would process that tax return. Now they have a friend take a tax class and do those tax returns with Turbo Tax now!

• Sara EA, were talking about 1100 returns for 7 locations that works out to 157 returns per location over a period of less then 10 days. The State’s reasons business income when taxpayer didn’t have a business, excessive wages, excessive withholdings, inflated and undocumented business expenses. The returns also claimed dependents when the taxpayer didn’t provide the required document of care. Sounds like the state has some facts to back up their belief.

  I don’t see anyone duped more like co-conspirators.

• Bill – That is plain out fraud by the Zee’s. Stupid people they deserve what they get. Thanks goodness Maryland is staying on top of these fools. LTS should be ashamed by not catching them sooner.

• Sounds to me like the State of Maryland has become the judge and the jury on this one. If you think they committed fraud, then charge them with fraud but don’t go making public statements to tarnish a whole brand. Fact of the matter is they can’t press charges because no laws were broken.

  We don’t live in North Korea or Russia, where the government decides on their own who has broken the law. Trust me these guys did not break the law, the state of maryland is just upset it has to pay so much Earned Income Credit. Guess what, you don’t like the Earned Income Credit, change the laws!!! It is called Earned Income Credit, not W2 Income Credit. If someone makes $10,000 and gets paid in cash the IRS expect you to report that income. If you don’t report it you are under reporting your income. Can’t have it both ways.

  If Maryland is stupid enough to have a law that says we will pay you a percentage of the Earned Income Credit from your Federal Return, then be mad at the lawmakers that made the law, not at the preparers that are preparing the return based on information provided by the client and based on current law. All Due Diligence has been done by the preparers. I’m sure you 3 idiots will spin this your way. Thank god we live in America where there actually is a due process!!! This will never hold up in court and hope corporate sues the hell out the state of maryland for this. Total BS and this coming from a democrat. Goverment going way to far with their authority. The 3 of you with combined IQ of 120 will not understand anything I am saying.

• ^^^Good luck, Barf villa, in getting anyone on this forum to listen to you or engage in a conversation with you when all you do is insult and call them names. For shame. If you are really who you say you are, a franchisee with more than one territory, I wish you luck when your own luck runs out and you try to disengage from that hellhole. I’ll certainly be laughing at you at that time, calling you the idiot. Boy do you deserve it.

• John: Your wrong the government does decide who broke the law and then it’s up to the courts to determine who is guilty or not. The State of Maryland is looking to enforce tax compliance. Apparently after receiving over 1100 returns they deemed to be potentially fraudulent they halted electronic processing for these locations. They can still file returns but they have to be paper filed. The state is being proactive and trying to protect all of its taxpayers. Better to error on the side of caution then to end up in a “pay and chase” situation.

  John: Liberty doesn’t have a brand but if you think anyone should be suing it should be the franchisees suing corporate for years of neglect.

  Explain to me how on one hand corporate can be absolved from the actions of its franchisees but can claim damages against the state for actions of their franchisees? All the state is doing is naming the businesses that are under investigation. Any defamation that occurred is a result of the company not properly vetting and monitoring their own franchisees.

  What really bothers you is these actions are directed against the bread and butter of this business model, the EIC client. Your upset because its not being challenged by the IRS but the states. All states have budget issues and thanks to technology they are becoming more aggressive enforcing tax compliance. I heard Ohio is doing a similar crackdown.

  I know you got a lot of customers to help. Make sure you do your due diligence and keep good notes.

• You’ve got a point . The state should eliminate the credit. Greed causes rampant fraud. Some of the action seems biased due to mentioning how the stores attract customers. Most of the fraud is done in small mom and pops and online. It would help if the credits are cut for Maryland. But don’t forget it will only cut state refunds not federal. I would say not enough is done to clean it up by the irs. Most of the problem is their fault.

• Paging IRS due diligence and Circular 230 – Apparently John Barilla has not completed his “own” ethics training required for holding a PTIN. Are you at least have the certificate holding of AFSP? Because if you do, you are not comprehending any of the requirements of processing EIC and looking out for fraud.

  John sure seems confident he is above the law. He may not even hold a PTIN and if he is a CPA, well then hopefully his operations will be audited.

• John, statements like, ” Trust me these guys did not break the law” and ” All Due Diligence has been done by the preparers” do show a rather blind support of Liberty and are the reason some on this board do not trust your posts. How could you possibly know that no laws were broken or that due diligence was done? At this point, no one does. Perhaps MD officials did audit some of those returns, but they haven’t published their results. All they did was spot suspicious filings and shut efile down from these offices. Innocence or guilt will come later.

  I am sure you are aware of the “security summit” held in DC this summer that involved all stakeholders–the chains (including Liberty), independents, software firms, banks, etc. They came up with a series of fraud measures and ways to combat it, and they are now going to share info on potential fraud with one another in real time. They did share some of their new tricks with the public but for the most part didn’t show much of their hand (why tell the crooks?). It appears to me that a high volume of self-employed taxpayers early in the season might be an indicator. Where I work about 40+% of our clients have their own businesses, and I don’t believe a single one has their tax info to us yet, even among those who use Quickbooks. None of these clients is eligible for EITC, but you do know that Form 8867 (due diligence) requires preparers to indicate what records the saw to determine EITC eligibility. Most preparers keep copies of the records to CYA. Perhaps MD found that the Liberty offices did not have anything to back up the claims?

  I think MD’s new fraud filters kicked in, officials did a spot audit of some of the returns, and the new system worked as planned. I do not necessarily see this as an indictment against Liberty. I do know those franchisees are in deep trouble. Not only did they have their business essentially closed at the very time they make their money, but they will face federal charges and enormous penalties. Their preparers are in the same boat.

  I agree that much of the fraud would stop if congress removed EITC from the tax system and put it back into social services where it belongs (where real people check actual documents that these are your kids, they really live with you, etc.). Yet I have heard that much fraud is now committed by organized crime who go so far as to REGISTER FAKE BUSINESSES that then issue fake W2s to the victims of their identity theft. But that’s another story.

• more trouble for Liberty in Maryland. Also expanding to 4 non-Liberty locations.

  http://www.wbal.com/article/140690/2/comptroller-expands-liberty-tax-probe-suspends-return-acceptance-from-16-more-locations

• I am in favor of removing the EITC because of the many opportunities for fraud it provides. It only makes it easier for predator companies such as Liberty, to make the argument that the business is profitable due to the size of this particular market. The problem is that this market segment lends itself to the tendency toward fraud-just the nature of the beast, Liberty has been able to capitalize on this due to their habit of instructing certain zees on what to do to charge high fees for otherwise simple, yet smaller refund returns.

  I also found it interesting that Martha O’Gorman admitted that Liberty does review every record that gets transmitted. This would put Liberty at liability as well as the tax preparers. This could also open up the door for fraud since Liberty reviews and accepts responsibility for the filings through their actions. Maybe us Ex zees have a class action suit to put against them, especially if we suffered damages? Would anyone be interested in this course of action?

• When it takes 400 to 500 returns to start making a profit, is it any wonder that there is fraud at some Liberty franchises. Bad leadership, bad investment, no surprise about this bad news.

• I wonder how worried Liberty is about The Maryland Comptroller. Since he he has shutdown 23 Liberty offices in and around Baltimore, how hard is he looking at all Liberty offices around Maryland?

  The Comptroller has shutdown e-filing to 50% of the Liberty Offices in and Around Baltimore.

  Just a thought.

• I suspect the real problem with the Zee’s in Maryland and other states is actually related to Liberty Corporate’s Fee Intercept Program. Cash flow is an issue with Liberty offices that are on Fee Intercept.

  When an office is on Fee Intercept, most or all of the Zee’s bank products fees are intercepted by Liberty Corporate to pay towards the promissory notes. This is forcing Liberty offices to inflate the fees of the earlier returns and most likely doing questionable returns.

  If you want to stop offices from doing questionable returns, you need to find the real cause. Which I suspect is related to fee intercept. The federal and state governments need to look into Liberty’s lending practices to franchisees.

• There’s a saying that ‘things happen in 3’s’.

  This week there is an OJ Simpson mini series on television (1). There is also a Bernie Madoff mini series on television(2).

  Next: John Hewitt mini series: The rise and Fall of a complete idiot that defrauded the US Government and the American people(for years). Coming to a television station near you(3).

  My hope is that the Maryland debacle is the first of each & every state cracking down on Liberty Tax and other firms not following the proper guidelines. Just as the government is cracking down on preparers, as it should. Fraud starts at the top. And they preached it loud & clear for years. Never in writing, of course.

• In a few states you have to post a bond in order to do financing and other bank like activities. I’m sure Liberty would push it back onto the franchisees to pay such a fee, but the fact is, Liberty is in the finance business which makes them a public nuisance. That fact should make more states aware of the questionable practices of Liberty since they are responsible for the charter of finance companies. Fee intercept can be construed as a financing activity and thus charterable in some states.

  I can’t say enough that the EITC should be eliminated. This puts fraudsters, like Liberty, out of business.

• EITC should be better regulated not after the fact. EITC should be blocked for people only making under $18,000 a year with children. Everyone with two brain cells know, those people under $18,000 in income, ARE NOT supporting themselves neither their children. They are double or triple dipping into all state and government support.

  Or, let’s set up more layers for EITC. One children under $10,000 a year, you get $500 additional in credit, not $1,300 or so. Also at $15,000 a year, you get $750 for a child. Right now, you make $8,000 a year, you can get back $4,000 in a refund without putting anything into the system. But you as a parent did not support that child nor even yourself! You should not even file a tax return at all!

  By not putting levels into the system, we are encouraging people to not work or even stay on a job. They jump from job to job and stop working so they can stay on the government dole.

  EITC should be for working people paying their own daycare expenses out of pocket, and paying their bills, not for the people on the government and states doles. They should be penalize, not the worker supporting their family!

• Chris Haynes in South Carolina 3 store owner and AD over Annie (Fraud) Fuller old stores actually an AD over 27 territories in Chatanooga has the Justice Department wanting to permanently shut him down.

• The Dept of Justice complaint will tell you all you need to know–even though we could already guess what’s going on. Since he’s an AD for 27 territories, he’s probably pushing the same techniques that got his own locations shut down.

  (the following is a pdf file)

  http://www.justice.gov/opa/file/821836/download

• Liberty is in trouble!

  They can say they have internal controls in place but this fraud keeps happening.

  How can corporate disassociate themselves from stores that bear their name? They cannot.

  Sorry, talk is cheap and the truth is this news is bad.

• I LOVE IT! LOVE IT, LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! F N BASS TURDS! I HOPE THEY GET SHUT DOWN SOON!!

• OMG!!! The DOJ is FINALLY using the documents a lot of us have sent to them in particular “Closing the sale”! Hurrah.

  My ex-AD did exactly how the Haynes taught his people. I am sure this came from the guy who was doing Liberty U or something like that.

  Hey IRS, there are AD’s in California doing the EXACT same thing, but on a larger scale. 4 or 5 years ago we got a picture of an AD’s office like January 3 or so and there were 20 people already waiting. ALL had CASH businesses. So this person was given a kudos from Hewitt of having about 200 tax returns prior to filing season.

  How do you get 200 people prior to opening efiling with solely cash businesses? A CPA on the line goes, how do you write that many returns prior to any W-2’s are issued or 1099’s. The AD spouted that they had cash businesses and they would manufacture receipts and expenses. No bank accounts or debit cards. Very shady, but were able to efile and get large tax preparation fees. After that the CPA asked “how is that legal”? So did a couple of other people? They said it was because these people did get money so they have to file tax returns

  Can’t wait to see that yahoo go down. Ripping off the tax payer!

  Our AD would not let people leave his office without writing the tax return. No one could leave. Can’t wait for him to go down!! Another Zee stated on a phone call, how they were going to write a ton of tax returns, in 2012 or so.

  1. Every call that came in got an appointment

  2. Every person who came in would not leave without finishing the tax return

  People better leave, because there are people who are scams.

  Shortl

• Lots of Funding issues for clients trying to cash checks today. Franchisees are getting delayed payments on ERCs Liberty States that they are just paying 1/3 of Federal Deposits from yesterday (although I got zero) the excuse is because of unprecedented volume hitting the system we will see if we get paid at all. When Liberty goes under it will destroy thousands of franchisees with it. Hopefully we will be able to pick up the pieces. Lots of franchisees with over 100k 200k or lots more in the hole waiting for payments again to dig out of debt.

• Hello, I am new to LibTax. I was concerned with the way I trained (4 day training w/no book) so I decided to just study on my own. I just passed bronze 2 days ago. I was solicited by LibTax to start a franchise so I thought I’d do some research. I am mainly concerned about the profits. But after reading all of your post now I am concerned about even being associated with LibTax.

  Is it possible to be a Tax Preparer without LibTax? I was issued a PTIN, so do I have to prepare under LibTax?

• LTS has serious issues given not everyone is trying to do bad but it appears many encourage it and allow it besides corp is a untrustworthy, deceptive and worse things I shouldn’t say kinda place. May who ever is still involved with this place leave if they have any type of self respect. John told us many lies and takes advantage of many people. Saw on his twitter account “getting people to understand how to use debt to grow your busies is one of the hardest thing”. Thats how he gets the most from you in the shortest amount of time – aka. Debt is a unavoidable result sometimes not a 1st option.

• “Unprecedented volume”? Liberty has been in business how many years? Isn’t about now the time the “first peak” refund deposits always hit the system? Or did IRS reverse the deposits of all those franchises MD identified as filing suspicious returns? Something is going on here. Anyone who finds a clue please share.

• After reading the post from yesterday I went and read the court doc. regarding the shutting down of Instant Tax Service and I kept thinking about the similarities between the two. You read the document and you just have to replace their name with Liberty Tax Service, it is almost a perfect fit.

  Then I come on this site today and read Concerned Zee’s comments and as SaraEa say “Something is going on here”. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

• Received payment today! This is a warning sign that all Franchisees must be aware of: Liberty Controls the money between the IRS and you. When they do go down it will dry up fast and you and I will be left holding the bag just like instant tax. Too many bad Franchisees and lack of Franchisor monitoring in house will take Liberty out.

• ^^Again, concerned Zee, not necessarily that there too many bad franchisees. It’s the way Liberty has handled information since their beginning in 1997. What they tell you, what they don’t tell you, what they conveniently ‘forget’ to tell you…….it goes on and on and on. I guarantee that what’s happening now is 99 9/10% Liberty’s own doing.

  I can’t wait for Liberty and it’s leadership to go down the tubes. I just feel so sorry for the current franchisees that are honest and caught up in the whole Liberty circus.

  Hewitt has been found cheating in every aspect of his life. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Especially if you think you can get away with it.

  Concerned Zee: I don’t know how much time you have left on your contract, but it may seriously pay for you to dis-engage or dis-entangle yourself from them as quick as humanly possible. It’s bound to get much worse.

• Concerned Zee you probably heard the IRS got hacked. I’m guessing that was the delay in IRS payments. I’m thinking we should all make sure you’ve got enough to have delayed payments. The overload effected all tax offices with bank products. Walmart had lots of folks with refunds. I bet they was happy. We got our money. You just need more customers who pay out of pocket. Try to balance your customer base.

• quest: Sounds like your another plant. Nothing Liberty did. IRS got hacked you just need more customers who pay out of pocket.

  The right answer is this company sucks and you should hope the IRS closes them down because that would be a contractual breach on their part and you would be free to operate on your own!!!

• The IRS has not stated why they had the problem this year. Last year the IRS was hacked, and 104K files were a problem.

• Two different things going on there. Guest is right that the delay in IRS processing the returns (most not funded until 2/10) was all IRS for whatever reason. That’s not Liberty corporate’s fault. However that’s not the delay others are talking about with Zees getting paid. That was all corporate. The payments for 2/10 refunds came to Liberty on evening of 2/8 (some of the Netspend refunds for 2/10 processed then), or at WORST morning of 2/9. Usually then franchisees get their ACH notice the next day, so 2/10. Many did not get paid until a day or two after that. Call it a technological glitch, a cashflow problem, a pure quantity issue, I’m not sure what it was. However, that was the delay that corporate did have control over. Many had the 1st payroll from peak payable that Friday, so a delay of a couple days was critical.

  Something is indeed up with the IRS this year, but corporate dropped the ball yet again too. Hopefully they get it under control and rest of year is smooth. I’m less concerned with the delays than I am with the drop in number of filer using paid preparers so far YTD. Not just Liberty but industry wide. That is down 10% as of 2/5. Lots and lots of preparers are going to be struggling and I’m very curious to see the big 3’s numbers once they announce. Don’t go simply by fees or returns. Back out freebies and also remember on Liberty end that everyone that got a loan has inflated Liberty’s sales by $45, as they are counting those in the sales figures, but the Zees never really get that money as they are paying it out (a $250 return with a loan only really is a $205 return to the Zee). It would be like them counting the bank fees in their sales figures. To get “real” year to year comparison, they’d need to announce sales, then subtract the # of loans x $45. Also should only be reported as the number of paying returns, with freebies being a separate category. Then you’d know the real health of the stores. Won’t see any of this detail though, as it’s not required, but that’s unfortunate. Would really like them to report number of stores up in paid return count, and number that are down. That would be an interesting read.

• One thing that Liberty has not thought about is the long term effects that charging everyone that receives an advance the $45 dollars. If word about it gets out, the zee’s will be the ones that will catch the flack. The taxpayers will not come back and they will start crying long and loud about being ripped off.
  Through banks working with Drake we were given the same option for the advance. The problem we had, was that if we chose that option we would have had an additional $30 dollar fee applied to all bank customers. We did not choose that option. Our commitment to our clients to bring them professional work at a reasonable cost would not all us have that charge to all bank products. Even though only a few would want an advance.

• Out and glad: If I understand what your saying the banks offset the cost of offering this product and possible losses from offering the advance by charging all bank customers an additional $35.00. Figures Liberty would be involved in it.

• We were not to add $45 fee for the loan just to those customers that got it, that was strict regulation. That said, I’m sure most Zees figured out the % of loan customers for early season, and then added a fee to all returns to cover that money (say $35 or something similar). Problem is, they also do that for $50 CIF. In the end, you are adding $70-100 to each return in gimmicks and fluff. The customer is getting this back in the form of the $50 + a “free” loan per say, but all they see in the end is that their return fee was $400. They don’t think about the extras. Some aren’t concerned about the fee, but many are. Hence the sharp decrease in numbers this year. You can only play the shell game so long. What I’m saying is that when corporate reports sales, they back out CIF and don’t include bank fees. This year though they will include the extra fluff added for loans. That is in essence a falsely inflated sales figure, even if it’s legally correct. The owners are not really making that, as it goes to the bank, same as the RT processing fee. If even half of the customers in the early season got this, that will inflate the sales figure by at close to 10% probably. $45 extra for half the return on top of an ANF of $300. This means if they aren’t reporting at least a +10% sales growth, they are really flat or declining YTD.

• Anon..where did you hear that paid prep is down 10 pct.? Thanks. Does anyone else have any stats?

• You only need to be concerned about the advance if lots of folks took it. Did’nt have to worry about prep down until now. I think mid and late season could be a problem. Had a great start. By the way, not a plant (so sorry). Maybe you noticed Block had gimmicks this year also. We have a good start for rest of season due to the early start. I don’t think it worked for everyone but early start was good idea. Self prepared with help and apps will kill stores that don’t have experienced staffers. I think that goes for all of us. Lib. JH. Block Mom and Pops. Still busy so far.

• Bill, the adding of $30 dollars to all bank products would have been required since we are considered a mom and pop. That would have been on top of the normal $28 dollar charge.
  Since Liberty is larger, they might have a different amount.
  No matter what it was not cost effective for our customers.

• IRS stats as of 2/5 show paid prep down 10% and total returns down as well through 2/5. Self prep was up 3%. Total IRS returns down 1 million YTD. It’s kind of weird. Unless the 1095A/B/C’s are confusing people and they are delaying filing. Unemployment has actually improved, so there should be more people filing, even if it was self prep. I’m not sure what the stats are pointing too, just what they are.

• https://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/Filing-Season-Statistics-for-Week-Ending-Feb-5-2016 the trend is bad for all people in the business.