Math Is Your Friend, Part 11

We’re running a very awkward promotion where we’ll do your tax prep for half of what a competitor charged you last year if you switch to us this year. So, if you came to us last year, you get no discount. If you went to another tax company last year, and they charged you $300, we’ll charge you $150, regardless of the difficulty of your taxes.

A lot of people took advantage of this. They had very simple taxes last year, but this year a life change made them much more complex… and they get them much cheaper than they should. Honestly? More power to those people.

I see it as my job to make sure that the client pays the minimum possible — to the government or to my company.

This client, though, was a moron. Last year, he went to a tax prep office that was inside a Walmart. This year, he came to us.

The first thing I noticed about his previous year’s return was that someone had slapped a grand total of seven completely blank Schedule Cs onto his taxes, along with a number of other unnecessary returns. According to his receipt, he was originally charged $650.

His taxes were very simple: two W2s, one kid, and some unemployment, for a total charge of $210.

The client demanded the half-off deal. I explained that I could not offer it because he was already being charged less than half of what he’d paid last year.

He made a huge stink about it, so I grabbed a manager. The manager shrugged and keyed in a manual price increase to $325, which the client then happily paid.

Related:
Math Is Your Friend, Part 10
Math Is Your Friend, Part 9
Math Is Your Friend, Part 8
Math Is Your Friend, Part 7
Math Is Your Friend, Part 6