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who's ready to retire - HRB wants you to


schirallicpa

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Why would any of us want to retire now when things are just getting fun.

But today I received in the mail a letter from the blockheads that they have flexible options and will even hire my staff.  (my dog?)  They will help reduce my fears and make goals of retirement a reality.  I'm telling you, HRB has given me a significant amount of amending work over the years.  Perhaps I will ask them to just keep me on as their fixer-upper preparer......

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BEWARE!!!  Working for HRB requires you to sign a non-compete agreement and to surrender use of your EIN.  So, if you wanted to keep some of your choice clients you would be violating their contract.     You would have to surrender all of your clients to them.  Liberty at least allows current clients to be grandfathered, so you don't lose them.

If your employees are tax preparers, they would be paid a minimum hourly draw against a commission.

It has been along time I worked there and management was a disaster then. From what I have heard from former colleagues, it hasn't changed much.  The district managers had no tax experience and didn't know an AGI from FMV.   At least the office managers were required to pass Block's exam.

They were constantly urging preparers to push HRB's programs, Peace of Mind (to cover errors in the return), Retirement Savings, etc.   HRB has lost law suits over usurious refund loans and also the Retirement Savings as people were losing money because of the high fees charged.

The really bright spot at HRB is their excellent educational materials and courses with the plus that they were free to employees.  Most of the instructors, usually EA's, were very knowledgeable, but occasionally one was a dud.    They also had a higher standards to pass the exams - 80% correct, whereas most others were 70%.

 

 

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I get daily offers of funds, buy in's, etc.

For those that watch the AK gold dredging show, Shawn P. found out what it is like to take on selfish "investors".  (Investor somehow put the new corp through bankruptcy as a means to cash out the investor shares.)

As part of the whole pandemic situation, a couple of my customers was thinking of just closing.  But they had a couple of long term reliable employees, and have seemed to have found a way to pass on / sell their businesses.  (Neither was all that aware of the ability to hire specialist representation to make such transfers easy, and fair to both parties.)  One has a child who wants to keep working in the business, but not run/own it, so they were able to come up with a method to sell to other employee(s), while guaranteeing their child's employment as a non owner.  I think both were able to get some amount of ongoing income for their retirement, without cutting the cash flow too much.

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I too have been considering retiring. The business is slowly downsizing due to clients passing on and the fact I rarely take morning calls anymore. Basically I have shifted all appointments to the afternoon and this is well accepted. I likely will try to go on for five more years unless bad health intervenes. To that end I am getting back into exercising more. Around here taxpreparers just quit. I don't recall anyone selling out although I probably could. 

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I've taken it for granted that I've got something worth selling, especially after the spouse of a colleague of my wife's asked me, in hope of luring his son into partnership with him.  That fell through but inspired me to contact a local broker of practices and exchange visits with a CPA to whom I felt I could entrust my favorite clients.  Ill health in his family and my attorney's over-scheduling delayed things into this January . . . .  I haven't given up but only accept that it'll be months before we could resume the courtship.  E.g., how could a prospective buyer meet any of my clients yet?
Just really quitting would leave most of my clients in the lurch when only a few deserve that.  If I spent the time necessary to find a trustworthy successor it seems only fitting that I'm paid for that effort.  We're "trusted advisors" in other ways already.

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