What you described actually sounds really useful, but probably not for the hobbyist. For people with just hobby projects, yeah, it's probably overkill.
I definitely agree, though. My intent is to monitor for if/when we get close to entering a new billing tier, see any obvious abnormalities in usage, etc. Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out!
As the co-founder of an on-demand service company [1], I have to agree partly with the core argument about trust, but disagree with its conclusion about the model's viability. It is definitely hard to ensure trust and satisfaction among customers without owning the entire process end-to-end. At our (currently small) scale, we manage this by offering fanatical customer service and communicating aggressively with our service providers. However, only time will tell if this will scale. I think there is a middle ground between a company shrugging it's shoulders and forcing the responsibility of vetting onto its customers, and completely guaranteeing quality. For instance, we add a layer of reviews that otherwise can be hard to find for tax preparers, stringently vet service providers, and also add a layer of customer protection by not charging them until they are satisfied. The article makes it seem as if the on-demand model implies no responsibility for quality by the company.
It seems that the real issue is that on-demand companies that charge a premium to "traditional" alternatives have a hard time justifying that premium if all they provide is a thin tech layer on top of said services. Uber is not only more convenient, but also now cheaper in many cases than taxis. I still think (albeit with strong bias) that if you can offer convenience AND cost savings, there is a legitimate value for the on-demand model.
The real problem is can you run your service with the quality of labor you will get as you scale. The reason you can offer fanatical customer service is your people are better than the average in the industry. It is very hard to scale labor quality.
That's a fair point, but it's so far down the road that for the foreseeable future it won't be a problem (at least for us). We're not under VC-backed pressure to grow at some unsustainable pace, so we can choose to bring on service providers at a pace that allows us to maintain quality. This definitely is a problem for the large on-demand companies out there, but that itself is part of a bigger problem where every startup thinks they need to be a billion dollar company (for many reasons)
Hey, HN! Long-time fan, infrequent contributor here. I posted this a while back, but since I didn't get much traction I believe it's fair game to re-post.
My co-founder and I are excited to share with you our startup - Taxaroo. At the risk of sounding cheesy, think of Taxaroo as "Uber", but for tax preparation. Taxaroo is a marketplace that matches tax filers with professional tax preparers entirely online. We offer up-front, fixed-price quotes based on clients' unique tax situation, and match them with experienced tax preparers that are able to handle that specific scenario. Clients pay no additional fees to us - we only charge tax preparers a referral fee.
Beyond simply a marketplace, Taxaroo is also a convenient (and secure) platform for you, as a client, to exchange documents and basic personal information with your preparer (rather than emails, lugging stuff to someone's office, or [shudder] faxing docs). We also enable you to pay with a credit card and only be charged once you've approved your final tax return(s).
Though we've been working on this for nearly a year, we only recently opened up the platform for tax preparers and have already received a strong response and lots of enthusiasm. We have signed up professionals from across the U.S. with an average experience of over 17 years preparing taxes. We rigorously validate several levels of identification and credentials, and verify these with the IRS.
We'd love for you to check it out and let us know what you all think! If you're getting ready for tax season, we want to offer HN a 10% discount for the first 25 people using this promo link: https://taxaroo.com/getstarted/LOVE4HN.
Thanks so much for your well thought-out response!
I think your perspective is one that many people share, though fortunately for us, not everyone does! My co-founder is a CPA with his own tax firm, and they handle ~1000 clients/year without meeting anyone in person. The demand there is what ultimately led us to giving this model a try in the first place.
As you described, it all comes down to trust, and we're working on building that up right now. I think our messaging, as it stands today, doesn't do enough to build trust. So far we've gotten a fair number of early users that will hopefully help build up credibility in the process, and we'll do a better job explaining how we vet our preparers.
Looking specifically at H&R Block, our value proposition is actually more than just convenience. They typically will hire people each year off the street with little to no tax prep experience, and give them a crash course in just a few hours. Compare that to our CPAs and EAs that average over 15 years of experience, and I think we have a strong value proposition in terms of expertise as well. We're not a true "Uber" model either, where the assignment of work is a black box. We let clients select their preparer from a set of compatible tax pros, and they are free to research which one makes them most comfortable. We encourage preparers to write about their experience, and to provide LinkedIn profile URLs to make it a little easier to find their background.
Obviously we're not in a position to convince someone with an existing relationship with their accountant to switch to using us, but we're targeting someone who otherwise would walk into a big-box tax store to get their taxes done.
As for target market, we're still struggling a bit to narrow it down. It's a little more complicated than just picking one at random, but we're testing hypotheses. We're looking in two directions right now - either on-demand economy workers who are working as independent contractors, and/or early career business travelers. Independent contractors because they are comfortable with the "gig economy" model and may have complicated tax situations, and business travelers because I know that world and know that they are busy and can have complex tax situations as well.
Hopefully some day in the future we can convince you to give us a try!
Yeah, they actually rebranded it as TurboTax Personal Pro before they discontinued it. It just shut down before this current tax season. We're picking up where they left off, with our company Taxaroo[1].
My understanding from the research we've been able to do is that there were a few issues:
- The branding was weird. TurboTax is supposed to be about DIY, so having a tax pro service under that was confusing. I spoke to several former preparers with Personal Pro who said they would get clients asking for technical support with TurboTax
- It started as "intrapreneurship" within Intuit, so it was a small team trying to grow it (not a top-down initiative). I suspect they had certain (large) targets they couldn't meet that were gates along the development process.
- I suspect ultimately, similar to above, it never became large enough to be interesting to Intuit, and it was likely cannibalizing some of their existing customers as it was.
I've used TurboTax the past few years, and completely echo the sentiment expressed by others regarding the hidden charges that get tacked on when starting with a "free" return. Turned out that losing money on the stock market also cost me extra on preparation fees as well...
Partly because of the negative experiences with TurboTax, my co-founder and I just launched a company [1] in this space. We're actually "replacing" a TurboTax product that was recently discontinued called "Personal Pro". We're something of an "Uber" for tax preparation, acting as an online marketplace and platform for clients to get their taxes done by professionals. TurboTax had tried this for a few years but it appears they're betting on a continuing shift to DIY.
Has anyone had any experience here as a client of Personal Pro? Would love to hear how it went!
I use H&R Block TaxCut (going on 15 years). Costs about 39.99 a year for both my business and personal. Just keep an eye open for when it goes on sale (retail is 89.99 I believe).
I even dropped Quickbooks after their shit 2011 "upgrade". Worst fucking software I've ever used, but hey, it looks like it's WPF now!
I'm sorry to come in with a blatant promo, but we've just done exactly what you described! https://www.taxaroo.com.
We can match you with a preparer from anywhere in the country, we quote you a hard up-front price, and you interact with your preparer entirely online.
My co-founder (a CPA) and I just launched it this year, and we've received extremely strong interest from professional tax preparers. We actually did a Show HN a little bit ago, but didn't get much traction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11074466
That's pretty much exactly what I was looking for and I'm giving a try right now.
It'd be nice to have some sort of ranking/rating system, or just some way of knowing that the preparer you recommended is qualified and good. Also it seems odd that nearly all the accountants you suggested were in CA despite me setting NY (not that that's a problem, it just seems odd).
That's awesome! We're excited to have you giving it a try.
Thanks for the feedback. I absolutely agree regarding the ranking/rating system. We've really just recently launched, so right now we just don't have many reviews. We do have the system in place, though, and we'll be building up those reviews.
Regarding the preparer locations - we plan to add the ability to sort/filter preparers, but we do only show you those that have specifically indicated that they can handle the type of returns required based on your quote. So, if you said you worked in NY and lived in NJ, the listed preparers will be able to handle both states. Same goes for rental property, capital gains, etc.
If you have any feedback or issues as you go, feel free to reach out to me directly at [email protected]
My co-founder and I are excited to share with you our startup - Taxaroo. At the risk of sounding cheesy, think of Taxaroo as "Uber", but for tax preparation. Taxaroo is a marketplace that matches tax filers with professional tax preparers entirely online. We offer up-front, fixed-price quotes based on clients' unique tax situation, and match them with experienced tax preparers that are able to handle that specific scenario. Clients pay no additional fees to us - we only charge tax preparers a referral fee.
Beyond simply a marketplace, Taxaroo is also a convenient (and secure) platform for you, as a client, to exchange documents and basic personal information with your preparer (rather than emails, lugging stuff to someone's office, or [shudder] faxing docs). We also enable you to pay with a credit card and only be charged once you've approved your final tax return(s).
Though we've been working on this for nearly a year, we only recently opened up the platform for tax preparers and have already received a strong response and lots of enthusiasm. We have signed up professionals from across the U.S. with an average experience of over 17 years preparing taxes. We rigorously validate several levels of identification and credentials, and verify these with the IRS.
We'd love for you to check it out and let us know what you all think! If you're getting ready for tax season, we want to offer HN a 10% discount for the first 25 people using this promo link: https://taxaroo.com/getstarted/LOVE4HN.
This is great, I was doing my tax the other day and thinking "Why the f* don't they make it a web form with simple English terms".
Tiny suggestion: Add a page saying which countries it's available for. Since it had a 'roo' I and ~25M Australian will hope it supports Australia. t was obvious once I started the form but first I look for an about or faq page.
Hey, thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, since we're U.S. based we weren't comfortable branching outside the U.S. just yet (since we aren't sure of the laws in other countries in this area). I hope we can support other countries in the future!
Hey! We do based on state. When you receive a quote, it includes all states you've lived or work. We then match you with preparers who indicate that they can handle returns for those states. By agreeing to do these states, they are in turn agreeing to handle local returns as needed. However, if you end up having any specific concerns you can freely discuss with your preparer (or us) and we can address them.
I completely agree, and I'm 22. The fact that I check HN several times a day should speak to my interest in technology. I would say this has nothing to do with age, just a certain sense of what's valuable.
While time has shown that the average person can find a use for Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, I still find it very difficult to see how "another" social app... and a photo-sharing one at that... is going to draw the kind of crowd that would make this extremely high valuation reasonable.
I would agree that, based on numerous comments across the web, the only reason for such a high valuation is because of possible acquisition. But this article specifically mentions that the company is not interested in being acquired, so I guess I just don't "get it".
During the dot-com bubble, "eyeballs" were becoming as important a metric for companies as "revenue" or "profit". It seems to me (and others here) that we're seeing some of the same sentiment all over again.
The fact that Color will give me a 'dynamic social graph based on who I interact with frequently' does not make me want to sign up. Then again, I might not be their target market. I currently don't have much interest in sharing photos on the internet with strangers just because they are nearby.
"thank you" for agreeing - as in for being 22 and still feeling that way. Phew, it isn't just the age.
I think that there are plenty of people interested in tech with nothing to do with any "social" aspects - it is just that social is new to the technology field and has attracted a lot of talent and money.
I used to think, and still do somewhat, that "social software" is almost its own field of interest and study - which will feed into other areas of technology but still be distinct. Thankfully there are still plenty of other engineering problems to solve elsewhere (there is, isn't there?) for people like us to work on !
I definitely agree, though. My intent is to monitor for if/when we get close to entering a new billing tier, see any obvious abnormalities in usage, etc. Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out!