To gain a better understanding of how online filing and, more specifically, the OLFC will steer future taxpayers toward your professional tax and financial services, first we must acknowledge that over the course of a taxpayer's life cycle, filers tend to begin their adult lives with relatively simple financial circumstances, summarized by a Form 1040EZ, then progress toward more complex financial circumstances which necessitate the filing of a Form 1040A or Long Form 1040.

Second, we must understand the limitations of online filing -- it is not the "end all, be all" tax solution that Intuit or H&R Block would like taxpayers to believe. Rather, it has been our experience that in the vast majority of tax and financial situations taxpayers simply would be better served by having their taxes professionally prepared and/or reviewed.

Thus, our approach has been to educate taxpayers about the limitations of online filing and the value of professional tax services. While taxpayers may not heed our advice this year, or even next year, they know that our professional services will be available when they receive a letter from IRS or when their tax or financial situations require more expertise.

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Essentially, we begin establishing a relationship with a future client, and his or her family and friends, by offering a Free Federal Form 1040EZ online. You, too, can begin building relationships with a new generation of tax filers and depositers by registering your organization with the OLFC.

 

Here's how it works:

1. Upon registering your company and contact information, the OLFC will instantly create a ProTaxNet web site for your organization with its own unique web address, which prominently displays your company and contact information to your prospective online filing users.

2. This unique web address URL, aka hyperlink, will be emailed to you for you to display on your existing web site should you choose to do so, or for you to promote by other methods. You are not required to have a web site to participate in the OLFC. In fact, most of the practitioners who have registered for the OLFC did so for the sole purpose of having a unique, attractive, and relevant web destination that they could call their own.

3. Your welcome email will also include a sample promotional email message containing your unique ProTaxNet web site hyperlink, which you can forward to prospective online filing users.

4. When a prospective online filing user clicks on your unique hyperlink to visit your ProTaxNet web site, he or she is presented with your company information, some general information about online filing, and prompted to "Start Your Online Return Now!" as you can see from the screenshots below. Note how the ProTaxNet web site also promotes, for practitioners, their own professional tax service options, and for financial institutions, our professional tax service options, thereby giving users a variety of filing options depending on their needs and circumstances.

 

click here to see a sample ProTaxNet launch page for Practitioners

 

or a sample ProTaxNet launch page for Financial Institutions

 

5. When the user clicks the "Start Now!" button to begin filing his or her taxes, this activity is recorded to a User Statistics database which you will be able to browse as a registered OLFC participant. Clicking the "Start Now!" button is no guarantee, however, that the user will complete his or her taxes online during this session. He or she may be just exploring, and may return to the online filing site, via your hyperlink, on more than one occasion to complete (or not complete as the case may be) his or her taxes.

 

click here to see Online Filing program screenshots

 

6. Once on the Online Filing Site, the user will have the option to file a Federal Form 1040EZ for Free ('Basic' package), a Federal Form 1040A and most Form 1040's for $19.95 ('Deluxe' package), and a business/rental oriented Form 1040 ('Premium' package) for $39.95. An optional State tax return is $14.95 as long as it is completed with the Federal return.

7. Support. 800-TAX REFUND, Inc. handles all support requests from online filing users, via email and telephone.

8. Revenue Sharing. For filers visiting your ProTaxNet web site who generate online filing revenue, our online filing software developer, CCH Inc., withholds 70% of the revenue, leaving the remaining 30% to 800-TAX REFUND, Inc.. Thus, for organization that participate in our Revenue Sharing plan, we will remit to your organization $5.00 for each paid Federal return generated through your ProTaxNet web site, payable at the end of the tax season. Additional revenue sharing is available to financial institutions (and in some cases, practitioners) for the professionally-assisted tax services we offer on your ProTaxNet web site -- refer to our Agreement and accompanying literature for details.

9. Lifetime Client Pledge. Any individual landing on your ProTaxNet web site via your unique ProTaxNet hyperlink shall remain a Lifetime Client of yours, and shall never be solicited by 800-TAX REFUND, Inc., the OLFC, or any other party as a result of the individual registering his or her identifying information with the OLFC, unless said solicitation is made on behalf of your organization, as permitted by your organization, and solely for the purpose of filing the individual's tax return through the OLFC.

 

Additional considerations: It takes just one email to a prospective online filing user for you to begin building relationships with a new generation of tax filers, because the promotional email you forward to your first prospect is easily forwarded from one prospect to another, a word-of-mouth advertising concept known as "Buzz Marketing". In addition, there is a "Recommend Site" link on your ProTaxNet Launch Page which serves the same purpose.

So when SallySmith@myschool.edu uses your site to file a 1040EZ & State, she's going to forward your hyperlink, or recommend your site as the case may be, to her friends, siblings, and parents, who, by using your site, also become Lifetime Clients of yours. In other words, you are promoting a service that takes advantage of the vast social networks of today's younger, connected Internet users.

 

We value the long-term revenue potential that a single customer represents, and, due to our variety of online and professional tax services, have come to appreciate the customer's tendency to migrate from simple to more sophisticated levels of service over time. Our Lifetime Client Pledge embodies that expectation: today's 1040EZ filers will ultimately produce revenue for you, whether it be online filing or professional tax service revenue, financial services revenue, or revenue derived from a family member or friend.

 

It is not our intention to convince you that participation in the OLFC will produce instant riches for your organization. On the contrary, it will take time to build a loyal user base, and it will take time for that user base to generate noticeable income. This is why we would advise you to be wary of paying competitors significant upfront fees to participate in their online filing programs. You should expect to incur some cost in promoting your website/hyperlink through traditional print or online media. One way we assist participating financial institutions in promoting their website/hyperlink is by imprinting their website info on a generous supply of our promotional Rack Cards. (Practitioners may order limited quantities of Rack Cards - contact us for details)

 

Practitioners -- We at 800-TAX REFUND, Inc. once considered online filing to be a marketing option for tax practitioners, but in view of today's industry trends, we now regard online filing to be a marketing necessity.

 

Financial Institutions - It has become common practice for the popular online filing sites to solicit their users year round for financial products and services that compete with your offerings.

 

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