TurboTax's "break up with your tax pro" ad touched a nerve in the accounting world.
And you know what? Maybe it’s because they have a point.
Intuit’s TurboTax ad pull fuels tension within accounting culture
Published Oct. 21, 2024
I got quoted in a CFO.com article about this mess, and here's my take:
The customer in Intuit’s ad says she’s leaving her accountant for:
A TurboTax expert who charges me less but gives me more.
Let’s start with the “gives me more” part.
TurboTax is super convenient. TurboTax Live Full Service allows customers to have their taxes prepared, signed, and filed by an in-house tax expert over the phone.
This typically takes about an hour or two.
How many accounting firms offer that level of convenience?
Not many.
Let’s move on to “charges me less.”
TurboTax offers to beat the price of any tax pro. And they have a good reason for it: The pricing in our profession makes zero sense.
Some tax pros charge $1,000+ for a tax return. Others? $200-300 for the same work. Come on.
At first, learning about this big price spread made me feel like I might be getting ripped off.
But unlike your typical tax customer, I’m a CPA, so I know that many accountants seriously undervalue their services.
But your typical taxpayer doesn’t know that, and Intuit can exploit this by offering to beat the price of any tax pro.
Finally, this isn’t in the ad, but there’s another way TurboTax is competing with accounting firms. That’s by stealing their people. As an employer, Intuit is giving young accountants what they want:
100% remote work
Schedule flexibility
Work-life balance
People are taking PAY CUTS to work at TurboTax instead of working at traditional firms.
Think about it.
If your staff would rather make less money working for TurboTax than stay at your firm, maybe the problem isn't TurboTax.
Intuit's CFO gets it. He says, "Accounting is no longer accounting." It's about being a strategic business partner.
Traditional firms need to wake up and realize that putting numbers into boxes on tax forms in a cubicle isn't enough anymore.
It’s not good enough for their customers OR their people.
That said, I disagree with TurboTax’s approach in airing this commercial. It’s a bad idea to trash your loyal customers.
Accountants are big buyers of QuickBooks and Intuit’s professional tax products!
It’s not right for the TurboTax marketing team to do it, and I feel sorry for the Intuit Accountants team that has to clean up the mess.
Thanks to Adam Zaki at CFO for pulling together different voices on this. We need more honest conversations about what's going on in our profession.
Watch Episode 404 of The Accounting Podcast on YouTube to see the ad (which Intuit has now removed) and hear more discussion.
