Hello Everyone,
In one of our local strip malls there is an H&R Block store that open year round. What do they do for income after tax season is over?
Well, if you’re self-employed, you need to file estimated taxes four times a year, in addition to your annual tax return. Perhaps they work on those, as well?
In my experience, the “main” office or district hq is open all year, the satellite stores are closed.
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And companies need to file monthly. A small one may not have internal “tax people”.
I know the one office near me has a sign saying public notary available so they do that as well. What the demand for getting things notarized is beyond my pay grade.
But having once worked as a postal clerk, I was surprised at the number of people who file tax forms every three months.
I have a neighbor that used to work for such a place for a few months each year for Jan-Apr.
These places hire a lot of temps, throw a bit of training at them and presto they’re tax experts.
At least my neighbor had years of experience as a small business owner and knew a lot about taxes for those. And he kept coming back as opposed to some temps who only did it as a one-off.
So a minimal staff for most of the year to handle the type of folks already mentioned that quite a few more temps during the rush.
I was a tax preparer for H&R Block for 1 season about 15 years ago, while my mom worked for them year-round. The company has a few main offices they keep open year-round, and depending on location and volume of business they might close the small satellite locations partially or completely.
They begin the recruitment cycle for their seasonal tax preparers in the fall by offering a training course showing people how to prepare basic tax returns. People pay for this course, and can do with it what they want. You learn everything you need to do your own taxes and can leave it at that. They offer the training courses in their centers and use the company computers and software as well as showing people how to do returns on paper; this is done in several of the small stores around the neighborhoods those people are likely to work. The training is a couple evenings per week, and lasts until just before X-mas. Then early in the new year seasonal preparers are hired; a pre-requisite being that they need to have taken the H&R Block training course. So you don’t have to work for them, but if you want a part to full-time temporary job, you have a pretty good chance of getting hired.
They keep a small number of more experienced preparers employed year-round to deal with: people who file quarterly, people who file late, people who get demand-to-file notices (usually from not filing at all for a few years), people who get audited and need help, people who need advice or assistance once their returns are re-assessed and something may have been disallowed or they need to fix something, and so on. Those same employees also might act as teachers for the training courses as well.
So, the smallest of the neighborhood stores might be shut down entirely for a few months, and others (depending on location and business volume) might stay open most of the year for various purposes. How their business model may have changed in the past 15 years I don’t know, but I don’t expect anything to have radically changed.
For the more complicated returns, an extension is applied for … once April 15th rolls by and all the easy returns are mailed … then the tax preparers can focus on those harder returns … note the extension is only for submitting the paperwork, we still have to pay by the deadline …
Also, if the business has a good cause and the IRS gives permission, we can file our tax returns at other times of the year … for example a ski resort will be cycling their books starting on July 1st, it makes common sense they should be allow to file returns in the summer … as ski resorts typically are making quarterly payments anyway … so we’re talking about a trivial amount of money submitted with the actual returns …
If you have a preparer fill out your tax forms and send them in … and you get audited by the IRS … I believe the preparer has to show up to the audit as well to explain their bullshit … another need to keep folks employed year round …
Normally all four of your estimated tax payments are calculated at the time you file your taxes in April. There’s no need to go to a tax preparer four times in a year. At least that’s how it’s worked for me for many years.
How one does estimated taxes depends on whether one’s income is highly seasonal or fairly flat.
People whose incomes look like grazing all year can figure it out once at tax time for the next 4 quarters. People whose income looks like the pig in the python may make 90% of their annual income in a single 2- or 4-week period. For them, refiguring their estimated payments each quarter can make a big difference in how much money they hold all year versus how much the IRS holds all year.
Even if their estimated taxes are very easy to figure out, there are a lot of people out there who aren’t good at dealing with even minimal paperwork. If someone else doesn’t help them, they can’t (or at least won’t) do it or do it correctly.
The office near me is fairly small. I wouldn’t call it a “main” office. Outside of tax season, it drops to being open only one day per week, so it doesn’t shut down completely.