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The Rant Thread!
TaoPhoenix:
This is more of a sideways observation not a rant, but there aren't many Food threads, so it can go here.
Diners are supposed to be about ____ & Fries. Burgers, maybe steak tips, maybe fried fish, your choice of other things. So why are a lot of Diner fries really nasty? I don't care for Home Fries, Paprika Fries, Vinegar Fries, weird little skinny fries, square lumpy fries with messed up textures, and more. Yes, lots of diners DO make good fries, but enough of them don't to make this rant.
Yet you know who does good fries a lot of the time? Pizza places. Except half the time pizza places can't make good pizza. But watch that same joint do amazing fries.
And then comes the surprise entry. Chinese restaurants?! Better than the Diners? :o
TaoPhoenix:
Rather than go too offtopic on the other software thread, I'll rant here about Opt-Out evils. It's almost becoming a game!
1. There was some program I installed recently (might be Easy DVD Player but I'm not sure.) I swear the opt-out looked like playing a game of mine sweeper! "Click 0 in all of these 0 and these 0 places to opt out of 0 strange 0 evil 0 weirdware 0 software". I *think* I got them all, but minesweeper?! To install a cheap utility?! Really?!
2. H & R Block Taxes. *Serious* love-hate relationship here. It's one of my best tips for anyone desperately looking for quick emergency cash / career item just out of college / other. The only reason I didn't do it here this year is I was just too burnt out from my move. So I have a piece of cake 1040 EZ, and landed a Second Year Preparer. That means the guy has at least taken a bic marker to cover the green-ness, but don't push them too hard. Fair enough.
Except this year they added a new "digital auto-sign" thing where the client signs once digitally then it gets applied all over the place. Except "all over the place" is almost TEN extra affiliates & services! I actually worked there off and on, so I warned the (NICE GUY) up front that I'd be kinda a bitchy client and off we went. So he was fine on the basic return. Then knowing better from the old days when I saw that "sign once apply everywhere" (!! Didn't we recall that from Java? Almost as many privacy holes here!!) machine, I really put my A game on and forced him to slow down. He made the mistake of blasting through the (admittedly "time wasting") schpiel (that wasn't his fault, he was stuck with it from Corporate), except he made the mistake of auto-*including* me in all the random services.
So being the privacy freak I am, I slowed him down big time and made him do it all over. I've been there, I promised twice that I wasn't going to bitch to his super, but that he just can't auto-include my tax info into random $hit that Corporate dreams up worse every year.
This might be a unique case where he's on "my side" but because A he just wants to drill out the quickie 1040EZ before his appointment etc, and being sorta-new, it's a semi-legendary mistake in that company. So I bet he felt kinda wiped out after I was done with him, trying to laugh and all but firmly saying that he can't opt me in to all that $hit. (I also put my (leaky! eek!) tax hat on and grilled him medium-hard on some of the next-level tax questions he should have been asking. I deliberately under with-held on my unemployment, hoping that ... well... that I'd be employed by now. But I'm pretty sure that triggers an underpayment penalty, except that I happen to know that 'Block's comp software magically hides it behind the scenes, so it's correct, but a sophomore preparer not really on an A+ game wouldn't know.)
So anyway. Opt-Out. This might be the first case where there is a *third party* involved. The "Real Evil" is H&R Block Corporate designing all this crap. Then because they are a legendary specialist to train newbie preparers (and if you DO stick it out like 5 years you DO become kinda good!) you can get roped into all kinds of weird crap you never heard of and the poor Preparer guy only got one class on it and is just kinda lost.
Whew! Opt-Out Evils 2.0! Rant!
40hz:
I once took a tax prep course from H&R. I was appalled once they started their recruiting efforts about halfway through on about four of of us who were the students most quickly "getting it" (We all had degrees in either accounting or finance - so us catching on quicker than others was no surprise.)
They kept emphasizing how you had to be "quick" and churn out returns as quickly as possible to maximize volume. And they also repeatedly did the big pitch for all the additional money you could make by pushing H&R's other services and investment opportunities to your "clients." Something we gathered you were also required to do.
All of us told them to forget it.
Tax prep services shouldn't operate using a fast-food restaurant business model. At least not in my opinion. And I find blatant "upselling" to be one of the most obnoxious business practices out there. Especially when it's being directed at people who lack sufficient background to even understand what they're being sold half the time.
But that's me I guess.
FWIW I haven't listened to, touched, bought, or even looked at anything from H&R Block since that experience.
Tinman57:
I once took a tax prep course from H&R. I was appalled once they started their recruiting efforts about halfway through on about four of of us who were the students most quickly "getting it" (We all had degrees in either accounting or finance - so us catching on quicker than others was no surprise.)
They kept emphasizing how you had to be "quick" and churn out returns as quickly as possible to maximize volume. And they also repeatedly did the big pitch for all the additional money you could make by pushing H&R's other services and investment opportunities to your "clients." Something we gathered you were also required to do.
All of us told them to forget it.
Tax prep services shouldn't operate using a fast-food restaurant business model. At least in not in my opinion. And I find blatant "upselling" to be one of the most obnoxious business practices out there. Especially when it's being directed at people who lack sufficient background to even understand what they're being sold half the time.
But that's me I guess.
FWIW I haven't listened to, touched, bought, or even looked at anything from H&R Block since that experience.
-40hz (February 11, 2013, 03:55 PM)
--- End quote ---
My experience with H&R has taught me they are a big ripoff. Some fresh out of high school gal (that I knew) that didn't know a tax code from a computer code. All she did was input information into the computer with no knowledge of how any of it actually worked. Ask a question about a deductible and it's off to the help files to try to find the answers, which usually turned up nothing. Wound up getting $40 back and had to pay H&R $55......
And when they quote you a price for their services, it's ONLY for the 1040. Any additional forms will cost you extra, and it's not cheap either.
40hz:
^The problem is, being a good "tax guy" (or lady) is a full time job. Those real tax professionals I know spend 5 months killing themselves getting their client's returns in on time, and the rest of the year staying on top of byzantine regulations and tax code changes.
It's not an easy or glamorous career. And it doesn't pay very well until you finally get established enough that you can afford to hire qualified (or motivated and trainable) help.
Once you go beyond a "simple" return the rules can get tricky very quickly. And if you have the type of financial situation that requires a complex return, well...unless you've done tax planning throughout the year, you're pretty much sunk come filing time. And that type of year-round planning is something only a real tax pro can help you with. And that level of expertise isn't found on a program CD.
If you're doing a basic 1040, something like TurboTax works just fine provided you're organized, work carefully through the "interview" screens, and take your time. What gets produced from that will be no different than what you'd get having a quickee tax prep service do it for you. It's pretty much the same software that gets used anyway.
Beyond that, you'll want a real tax pro if: you just bought a home, run a business, inherited or won a significant amount of money, had major medical expenses or insurance losses, have an investment portfolio - or actually expect to retire someday.
And FWIW, most of the real tax professionals won't be found in a location that keeps shifting back and forth between several of your local strip malls.
8)
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