H&R Block’s war on taxpayers
The average taxpayer spends little or no time thinking about what goes on in Washington, especially when what’s going on involves complex discussions about tax code. A more boring topic there isn’t. So why should anyone pay attention?
Because when taxpayers don’t pay attention, something like this happens:
H&R Block’s Push to Make Tax Forms Harder for Low-Income People
Tax preparers stand to benefit from the change the company promoted.
Emotional responses to financial information
According to the recent Edelman Trust Barometer (2013 Annual Global Study: Financial Services Industry Findings), U.S. trust in financial institutions is at a low of 46%. In other words, 54% of Americans do not trust financial institutions. Much of that mistrust is likely a result of the financial, worldwide crisis of the past seven years. […]
Start-ups try their hand at simplification
A recent article in the New York Times profiled Josh Reich, a software engineer and founder of Simple, a new online banking start-up. The company has joined the growing ranks of start-ups disrupting business as usual in the banking and health care industries. “Banks make money by keeping customers confused,” Mr. Reich said. In response, […]
Mortgage disclosures in plain language
For the past year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, working with Kleimann Communications Group, has run extensive usability testing with consumers throughout the U.S. on the proposed new mortgage disclosure form. This form combines the original Truth in Lending disclosure and the Good Faith Estimate into a single three-page disclosure. Because purchasing a home is […]
How Much is Plain Language Worth?
Joe Kimble, professor of law at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, has just finished his long awaited new book, Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please: The Case for Plain Language in Business, Government, and Law. Carolina Academic Press, which also published his earlier book Lifting the Fog of Legalese, is the publisher. The book sets out the elements of […]
The cost of fine print? About $3K a year.
If you think America is shifting to a culture of transparency, unfortunately, you’re wrong: consumers are drowning in more fine print and byzantine disclosure language than ever before. Bank contracts and product manuals commonly bloat to hundreds of pages, in type as small as 1/6 of an inch. Who reads this stuff? Almost nobody. And as this news clip from […]