- Listen to the entire program<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n
![\"liberty](\"http:\/\/cache2.asset-cache.net\/xc\/85927770.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF8789215ABF3343C02EA548252E35D167ADFBDC61FCED815D966D72CCF388C9B41D5076E30A760B0D811297\")
Every afternoon when I drive home from work, going up Lake Avenue in Pasadena, I’m treated to a dancing Statue of Liberty dressed in garish green, advertising Liberty Tax Preparation. It’s not just H&R Block outlets any more – tax preparation store-fronts have proliferated in the last few years. But even though everyone has to file taxes, these tax-preparers are ominously located in poor, often minority neighborhoods, tucked somewhere between the Rent-A-Center and the Pay-Day Loan centers. In a detailed investigative report, journalist Gary Rivlin exposes these tax-prep chains in the latest issue of Mother Jones magazine. While it should hardly come as a surprise that there is an element of exploiting the poor at work, what is shocking is how lucrative a business it is to prepare people’s taxes. Rivlin reveals that what brings the working poor in through the doors of these store-fronts is the promise of an upfront loan based on their returns. Taxes filed after January 15th usually yield IRS returns in 15 days. But customers desperate for cash are led to believe they could have to wait weeks for it, unless they get an instant loan in the amount of their return minus a bunch of fees. Many banks working with the tax preparers were involved in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and now even private equity firms and hedge funds are being lured by the promise of easy profit. It’s not the loans that make the tax-preparers their money however – it’s the actual tax return filing enabling these companies to charge someone upwards of $300 for a 10-minute data entry task into a piece of software.<\/p>\nGUEST: Gary Rivlin, Freelance journalist, a former staff writer at the NY Times, his work has appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine, Salon, and Newsweek, and he is the author of BROKE USA, which comes out in paperback in June.<\/em><\/p>\n
Find Gary Rivlin’s article at http:\/\/motherjones.com<\/a><\/p>\n