Tax Preparation for Fun and Profit

So tonight I went to a meeting of the local APICS chapter (American Production and Inventory Control Society). The speaker was the head of the local H&R Block office. What does tax preparation have to do with production and inventory control, you may ask? Nothing, but like many professional associations that have regular meetings, they need to find speakers for the meetings, and the H&R Block people offered to talk about taxes for free. Usually there is a sales pitch associated with the talk, but the good speakers will give out about 80% useful information, 20% sales pitch.

I've been using TurboTax for about 7 years now, and the program walks you through your taxes pretty thoroughly, so I wasn't interested in hiring a tax prep service. The presenter did have some interesting war stories, however.

Anyway, after the presentation, I sat down with the presenter, who was the manager of the local H&R Block office, and inquired about becoming a paid tax preparer. To get hired on, you have to take their tax prep course, follow that with follow on training in December and agree to work a minimum of 12 hours per week from late December to April 16. The class only costs about $200, but the classes require 100 hours of classroom time, and you have to pass tests at the completion of each class. You pass the tests, they'll put you to work.

The compensation plan works as a draw against commission. The first year you don't have many clients, so you'll probably be stuck with the draw. According to the office manager, that works out to be about $7.50/hour. On the downside, that is not much money for a pretty big investment on training time. On the upside, they market heavily and bring the clients to you. Over time you can build a base of clients, and with experience you learn to handle progressively more complicated tax returns that are more highly compensated. Also, although the money is not good, it beats putting on a hairnet and practising "You want fries with that?"

Most personal finance blogs focus on cutting costs, reducing expenses. This would be a way of playing offense, increasing my income. Not an availible option for this year, however.