Complaint Review: Jackson Hewitt - Pueblo Colorado

I worked for Jackson Hewitt in Jacksonville, FL and was completly misled about the training and staff that would be made available to me as an Office Supervisor. I received the position due to no one else would take it, everyone else gave it a try and walked out. Jackson Hewitt stores are owned by Invdiduals that are looking to make a fast dollar on people that are in need of assistance with preparing their tax returns and need their money fast (the Rapid Refund Loans). The tax codes are forever changing and the forms are not user friendly to the average citizen. I found that we were grabbing people off the street and placing them in front of the computers for a short amount of training. More than 75% of my students failed the final exam and I was instructed to get live bodies in the chairs by Jan 15, 2004. Jackson Hewitt does not make it's money preparing tax returns, they make their money selling loan products at high interest rates and they charge ($25.00 peak fee, 141% mark-up on top of per form fees that average $20.00 each)this is triple the normal cost of having a bookkeeper prepare the same return. Do not use these people in the Jacksonville, Fl area. You want to stay away from all stores owned by Jaxsn Inc. (Steve Burnett). He starts each year with a new off the street staff of people that can hunt and peek your return into the computer, but have no knowledge of the tax laws. I would say 50% of the returns that were processed in his stores, were incorrect. But that is what the insurance is for, it protects him, just not you! Unless you wish to cough up another $29.00 for a Gold Guar. of insurance up to $5000, goodluck collecting off of it. I would go to H&R Block in the Jacksonville Area or a Bookkeeping Service. I can not rate other Jackson Hewitt's just ask lots of questions and do not buy into the Rapid Refund Loans or extras. I found that the IRS did direct deposit in 7 to 10 days for free, you just had to pay the inflated tax fees to Jackson Hewitt to prepare and efile it. If you can, use Turbo Tax or Tax Cut and do your own, that is what all of my family and friends do. Also, they do not screen the background of their employees and everyone has access to your personal data. The employees can pull up your return and print it out and use it for what ever purpose they wish. There are no safeguards in place. I guess you see why I could not get out of this company fast enough! I have years of accounting training working with CPA's and have never seen anything like the working conditions and training provided at Mr. Burnett's stores.

I hope that by this point concerns have been resolved, but from your perspective on the situation I recognize that they may not have been. It's very important to consider when discussing the compentence of Jackson Hewitt employees or the company's hiring practices the position that Jackson Hewitt finds itself in every April 16. On April 16, the company magically transforms from a firm with 35,000 employees to a company with less than 5,000 employees. Typically Jackson Hewitt employees complete a 12 week course in the fall, but sometimes to find that many people for a seasonal job you have to resort to measures like hiring people out of a one day or a one week class. The reason is the company's reliance on seasonal workers who because of their seasonal nature cannot easily be trained at the same level of year round employees. In order to finance year round employment on any large scale, higher prices are required, yet many of the other rip off reports on Jackson Hewitt specificaly cite Jackson Hewitt prices as being too high. So it looks like Jackson Hewitt has the balance between prices and employee training about right -- or as right as it can be. In this type of environment -- indeed in any environment where you're dealing with people's finances -- some mistakes are unavoidable. The key to providing excellent customer service is to take every action possible to correct the mistake once it's discovered, be it discovered by the client, by our staff, or by the IRS. Depending on the cause of the mistake, this may require a refund of our fee, payment of penalties and interest caused by our error, a discount on future tax returns, or even all three. For what it's worth, you have my apology and acknowledgment that the situation as depicted isn't equitable. Though I'm a District Manager on the East Coast, so there's little I can do about situations in Colorado or Texas. I hope now that the mist of the tax season has cleared the Franchisee in your area saw their way clear to review your situation again. It is not just a Jackson Hewitt issue -- everyone in the tax industry is impacted by the problems of seasonal staffing. The same problem could just as easily take place in a H&R Block office, a local tax service office, or a CPA firm. Lastly, remember--CPAs are experts in Accounting, not Taxation, many CPAs have only one or two college courses in Tax and run businesses which frequently offer clients accounting, bookkeeping, employment taxes, corporate taxes, and individual taxes. Frequently tax preparers concentrate only in individual tax and devote all of their continuing education to individual issues. CPAs can easily go through an entire career without a single college or continuing educational course in individual tax. It's very much like when you need an attorney, Would you rather go to an attorney who specializes in what you need? Or to an attorney who can do it all -- write your will, end your marriage, and defend you for capital murder? Just my two cents. I probably got a bit carried away, but there are neary 4,500 Jackson Hewitt offices in the country, most of them provide excellent customer service in the tradition of a company that was founded on values of customer service.

I was very new in town with a serious corporate accounting background/resume'. I thought I would apply at Jackson Hewitt on Northern Ave. in Pueblo, CO. I found out that they give a couple of weeks training and set you out there to "professionally" prepare a clients taxes. They are pulling people off of the street! I decided not to apply because I would never work with a company that I did not have full faith in.

I am a former supervisor. I was "trained" to prepare taxes in one week. Fortunately, for MY clients, I have been preparing taxes since eighth grade, taught by my father, a CPA. I am also a full-time college student majoring is business management and minoring in accounting. For school, I was required to take an income taxation class and participate in a gov't-sponsered program for low-income taxpayers to get free tax preparation. JH knew of this from the first day of employment.