A handful of Gibsons residents were hoping for a sizeable refund when they brought their tax notices to Liberty Tax Service in late April. Instead, they saw their tax returns enter a twilight zone, only to emerge more than a week later.
For Cheryl Baron, the trouble began on April 25, five days before the tax deadline. After dropping off papers to complete returns for herself, her husband and her son, Baron said she hadn't heard from Liberty by April 29. Her phone calls went unanswered the next day, and a drive by the closed office in Gibsons Park Plaza revealed "mountains and mountains" of envelopes stacked inside, she said.
By May 12, she still hadn't been contacted to sign off on her tax return. When she contacted Town of Gibsons bylaw officer Ron Joyce on May 15, he had already heard the complaint from other Gibsons residents. In each case, Joyce tried to contact the franchise, but met with the same result as Baron.
Karen Stromboli, the director of operations for Liberty Tax Service Canada, said the problem began when a store manager fell ill and was hospitalized for a few days. Although the pace slowed, files were still being received at the head office each day, she said. "We're known for our customer service, and we're very disappointed with what happened in Gibsons," she said. "Our job is to get the returns completed as fast as possible. Any charges a customer faces due to an error we made, we'll definitely reimburse them on." Stromboli said no customer complaints were received at head office, and neither manager of the Gibsons franchise notified them of the situation. The problem came to her attention, she said, only after Coast Reporter called her for comment on May 23. (Though Baron said she had emailed a complaint to the company on May 15.)
Liberty Tax Service is based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and bills itself as "the fastest growing international tax preparation firm ever." It has 259 franchise units in Canada, and 2,070 in the U.S. Though 90 per cent of the franchises are independently-owned businesses, the Gibsons location is corporately-owned, said Stromboli. It's been a licensed business in the town since 1998. Joyce said he received complaints from four Gibsons residents about the tax service. At Coast Reporter's press deadline Thursday afternoon, Stromboli said four returns were still not completed, after accounting help had been brought in from Vancouver.
Baron's tax return was finally completed on May 16, 10 days after the extended tax deadline of May 6. (The deadline was extended by Canada Revenue Agency due to a problem with their online filing system.) Although she's been a customer at Liberty for the past three years, she said she has taken her taxes there for the last time.
Although the Sunshine Coast RCMP are aware of the situation, Cpl. Todd Creed said it's a civil matter which doesn't require RCMP involvement. Stromboli said the company plans to take action to prevent the problem in the future.
"We'll do everything in our power to ensure this problem never happens again," she said.
