Workamping Review of Jackson Hewitt in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Disclaimer: We are in no way affiliated with or representing Jackson Hewitt. We are simply detailing our experience for those interested in our Workamping Job in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

April 1, 2019: It’s TAX MONTH. Have you completed your 2018 tax return? If not, we are here to help. No seriously, if we can help you out, drop a comment below or send us an email with your tax questions. So if we don’t have you panicking about getting your taxes completed in the next 10 days, give our three month workamping update a quick read. Since we have completed 3 months, you might sense a theme of 3’s in this post. Consider it a trio of tax work.

LOCATION: Sometimes Albuquerque gets a bad rap and we did our fair share of complaining about the unusually brisk temperatures back in December, but we really have enjoyed exploring the area. It is a unique combination of dry dessert and snow-capped mountains. The skies are usually blue and clouds are few and far between. It is a vastly diverse city which also ups its food game with lots of cuisines to tickle the tastebuds. Museums abound filled with history, cultural traditions and its fair share of quirky and unique places to learn something new. Believe me when we say we do enjoy the country and being away from it all, but we also have always enjoyed cities. Our location in Albuquerque definitely fits the bill for the urban camping experience.

Despite ranking in the mid 30s in overall city size, with just over a half a million people, in our opinion Albuquerque is a good-sized city that gives us a lot of neighbors, but also gives us tons of options for grocery shopping, dining and experiences. Also, despite its size, traffic is almost non-existent. You will hear Albuquerqueans complain about the traffic, but they must have never tried to commute in Philadelphia or Atlanta. While talking about traversing around the city, I must mention how easy the city is to navigate. Two interstates cross in the middle of the city creating 4 quadrants to use as a point of reference. Combined with a prominent mountain range on the east side of the city and the grid-like roads make even a directionally-challenged individual like myself (Betsy) able to know which way to turn at a traffic light! In relation to our job, our “urban-style” campground is conveniently located near many of the Jackson Hewitt offices, with most being within a 15 minute drive.

EXPLAINING THE CLIENT’S TAX RETURN: If you told us a year ago, we would be explaining the ins and outs of Form 1040 to people, we would have cocked our head a little to the left and said, “say what?” With Russ being a numbers guy and Betsy keeping the books for her bakery business, you would think we may have been more involved with our taxes. Rather, we were the ones that took our stuff to our trusty accountant year after year and were thankful they did the leg work. We are still grateful for our tax guy as at that time in our lives, we didn’t have the time necessary to study and get to know the tax laws. After accepting this job in September, we began what we called “Tax School”, which was a very in-depth online training in regard to tax codes. 2019 brought big changes to the tax laws and even the format of the 1040 form as well. I think we were almost at an advantage in that we didn’t have all the prior year’s codes and forms fresh on the brain. We found it very satisfying to be able to help our clients truly understand their tax return and provide a side by side comparison to their return from the previous year and what changed, what benefited them and what may have impacted either their refund or their amount owed. We worked hard to do everything within reason to get them the maximum refund or minimum amount due, working to make sure we got them every credit or deduction they deserved. It was shocking how many clients hadn’t had this kind of experience in the past and would thank us for taking them time to explain the return to them.

COMPLETE CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE: Customer service is a big deal to us. While we work minimum wage jobs, nothing frustrates us more than the phrase “that is above my pay grade.” We take pride in representing the company or the brand we work for, whether that be a tourist-based business, campground or tax company. When you wear the name tag, you represent the company and their goals and mission. In our case, I’m not sure their has been one where customer service wasn’t considered utmost. We enjoyed being able to offer the complete customer service experience, from the customer booking an appointment over the phone, greeting each and every customer who walked into the office and following through in completing their tax returns. We would often get calls with customers not receiving their refund and while it was easy to just blame it on the IRS (which often times that was the hold-up), doing our part to make certain the return got it their hands was upmost. Sometimes that required calls to banks or third-party vendors on behalf of the customer. They appreciated us taking the extra step is getting their problems solved without passing on the buck.

We know we aren’t supposed to pick favorites, but we have had the pleasure of helping some clients who will stick with us for a long time. It was always a pleasure helping our tax clients and sometimes you would get more information than you really wanted about their personal life. Obviously their names have been withheld for confidentiality.

NO-NAME CLIENT #1: I had the pleasure of helping a 75+ year old lady complete her tax return. She was in a bit of a rush to complete her return as she was leaving the very next day to begin the adventure of her life - hiking the Appalachian Trail. I did think at first that maybe she was just pulling my leg, but as I had the opportunity to chat throughout the tax return, I could tell she was passionate about it and even planned for doing the other two major long-distance thru hikes of the Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail known as the Triple Crown of Hiking. What an awesome aspiration she had at her age and regardless of whether she completes it, was an inspiration to us to get out and explore the country. Her flight was booked, her research done and bags packed to head to Georgia the next morning and she had her segments all planned out. When she walked through the door that morning, she didn’t fit the bill of what I would have expected for someone planning to hike the AT. What an inspiration. It was a joy meeting her.

NO-NAME CLIENT #2: Both Russ & I had the chance to work with a lady who by the end was referring to Russ as her “Tax Man”. I have a feeling she will be disappointed if she schedules her tax appointment next year and Russ is not working for Jackson Hewitt. Russ was also able to help her file the taxes for her son who was incarcerated. She was so worried that she would do something incorrectly and had a lot on her plate taking care of grandchildren. She also was a pleasure to assist.

NO-NAME CLIENT #3: Like would be expected, the tax returns began to get more difficult as the tax season progressed. That also made them more time-consuming and often required the client to drop off their information and make a follow-up appointment to finalize the return. Russ spent several hours on this gentleman’s return, carefully calculating high dollar carry-over losses and complex dividends. Russ followed up with the client via phone with the final numbers. He seemed surprised and scheduled an appointment to go over everything. The reason for the surprise was that he had already completed the entire return himself and brought it along to go over Russ’ version line-by-line. As his quiet and patient wife sat next to him and when they got the the part that differed, Russ explained the reasoning for the numbers and his wife says “HA! I knew Russ was right!” He was such a fun customer to help and was thankful for Russ’ careful eye in getting his return completed correctly.

WITHHOLDING ADJUSTMENTS: Understand and actively participate in your withholdings. If year after year you get a refund or year after year you owe, change your withholdings. The tax law changes that went into effect for the 2018 filing year were major. Many people’s tax rate did drop which made people expect a refund. However, that was not the case as the withholding tables weren’t changed to accurately portray the change. So while many people did owe less, not as much was withheld, meaning year over year they had to pay more. Telling someone they owed $XXX after receiving a refund for the past years was not our favorite part of preparing taxes. Adjust those withholdings!

STATE TAX CODE: Know your specific state’s tax law. While you may not have enough in medical expenses to claim them on your federal return, especially with the standard deduction amounts doubling in 2018, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to use them on your state return for a credit. Also things like, childcare may not have a place on your federal return, but may be used as a deduction on your state taxes. If you don’t want to have to know these things, might we recommend a tax professional to take care of those things for you.

FIRST COMES LOVE: Get married and have kids! No seriously, that is the best advice for improving your tax situation. However they will both probably cost you more than you’ll get in credits somewhere down the line!

It can’t always be rainbows and unicorns! I think it is likely the case for just about anyone, there are things you love about a job and things you would prefer to pass on in a job. Here are the things that just weren’t quite our favorite:

ATTIRE: In our previous working jobs, casual was the name of the attire game. Shorts, t-shirts and flip flops frequented the most worn list. Well, not this job. Thankfully we didn’t have to pull out ball gowns or ties, but we did have to dress to impress! Don’t tell anyone, but I have worn the same two pairs of dress pants everyday thus far! Change up the shirt, shoes and earrings and it looks new and different everyday.

THE BOTTOM LINE: While it was always fun telling someone they were getting a big refund, even if it was just money they had withheld that they were just getting back - it still made them happy. The tables turned when we had to tell people they needed to get out their checkbook. This is when discussions about IRA contributions would crop up. Let’s see what we can do now to help and what we can do in the future to make a difference in your tax liabilities.

THE COSTLY MISTAKE: The fear of goofing someone’s return up. Whether through a typo or not being able to find the definitive answer to a question. We were thankful to have a good process support in place to answer the tough questions as well as the uber thick “Tax Bible” to reference, but the fear of that always loomed.

THREE. TRES. TRIO. TRINITY. TREY. TRIPLE. Whatever you call it, with MONTH 1 + 1 + 1 in the books, we are still enjoying our job here in Albuquerque. With most workamping jobs, we also hope to do something new in a place we haven’t been and this one fits the bill. If you have any additional questions about our experience with Jackson Hewitt, please don’t hesitate to drop a comment below or send over an email. Stay tuned, as our FINAL WORKAMPING UPDATE will come shortly after Uncle Sam’s birthday, I mean the tax deadline on April 15.

If you are curious about the world of Workamping, checkout Workamper® News the company that coined the term Workamper® back in 1987. They offer a free membership that allows you to search for jobs and receive the digital version of their magazine. If you do opt for the gold membership which includes additional features like a resume builder & printed magaizine, we would love if you would mention that you were referred by Russ & Betsy simply by using the code AMB103.

RUSS & BETSY'S WORKAMPING REVIEWS / UPDATES:

- - - Jackson Hewitt in Albuquerque, NM (December 2018 - April 2019):