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H&R Block shares higher today after a better than expected quarterly earnings report highlighted by their artificial intelligence tax assist resulting in higher new client conversions. For more, let's welcome in Jeff Jones, who is H&R Block's CEO. Jeff, good to see you once again here and thanks for hopping on the program with us. You know, first and foremost, you know, as I'm taking a look through some of these earnings results here, largely beats some of the expectations here, revenue beating the forecast and and revenue forecast rather, I should say for 2025, beating some of the estimates and expectations here. Walk us into what you're seeing right now in in the market and the demand for people getting help with preparing their taxes.

Well, good morning. Um, and we're really happy with fiscal 24, which we just announced yesterday. I think it's important to remember what we've been up to strategically as a company. Obviously, we're known for consumer tax preparation, but the way we've been able to diversify into small business tax, small business services, our acquisition of the company Wave, which is a SAS provider of small business services, our mobile banking platform Spruce. So when I look back across the fiscal year, we saw really nice growth in all of those different businesses. Um, that's really what's contributing to the great performance in the year, but then also looking to 25, you know, we have a really nice outlook for the year and we see growth and potential really across the board in those businesses.

I mean, there's there's historically always been this human element at H&R Block, but you're seeing some success, early success right now with the AI tax assist as well. I mean, how how far are we away from people just walking into an HR block location and just walking up to an AI assist kiosk and having things done that way?

Yeah, well we're definitely leaning into artificial intelligence and specifically generative AI. AI tax assist is you're talking about, we were really early to the market this past year in bedding this option for consumers to get help. And we're not forcing people down a certain path. You know, this was a choice they could make and we saw when new clients made that choice, they converted in our DIY software at a higher rate. That's really good news. To your point though, mean our brand is grounded in human help. And we think the combination of artificial intelligence to help the consumer and artificial intelligence to help our tax professionals is really where we're headed. It's obviously very early for everybody, but you know, we're embracing the potential of what this can do for our business.

So, is that leading you to think that there might be any restructuring, any changes to that overall H&R block experience given the consumer demand and what type of tools they're gravitating towards?

we love to offer the consumer choice. Uh, and that's really what we're doing. You know, if if someone wants to walk into a location and have a 100% physical experience with a seasoned expert, you can do that at block. You can work with that same expert fully virtually and never go to an office. You can do taxes on your own with our software and increasingly artificial intelligence will enable all of those experiences to be better, but we really believe that we're in a position to offer the consumer a range of great choices, whatever's best for them.

Jeff, what would you say are are three things that all taxpayers should know before they file next year?

Brad, I get I get asked about tax tips all the time and what I always tell people is, you know, the the the tax return and your tax life is really like your financial fingerprint. And so it's a little dangerous to give very broad tips to the masses. But when I'm talking to our customers, you know, what we're trying to do the most is get them the biggest refund as fast as possible. We're trying to give them confidence. We're trying to remove the surprise. And so some of the tips I give our customers are things like, you know, as your year is going on, we offer a free check-in mid-year to get a sense of how your tax life is changing, so when it comes tax time, you're not surprised. Take advantage of that. People have life changes during the year. Move, child, marriage, etc. and all of those things can change the outcome of your taxes. So think strategically about your withholding and you really can be in control of your outcome a lot more than, you know, maybe a lot of people believe.

Jeff, while we have you here, both President Trump and Vice President Harris, former President Trump, I should say, and Vice President Harris who are campaigning, they have no tax tips proposals as part of their economic proposals. Not going to ask you to weigh in on the election, but how how do you see a proposal or President Trump's proposal to get rid of Social Security taxes affecting H&R Block's business?

Well, thank you for not asking me to commentate on the on the uh the actual candidates. I mean, we're obviously in the tax prep business, not in the tax policy business. And so every single year, there are dozens, hundreds of changes at the state, local and federal level. And what we do best is translate those changes into great advice for customers. So we always wait to see where policy changes actually land. You know, on the campaign trail, there are a lot of promises that may or may not actually become tax policy. Um, but that's where we really focused is, what are the changes they make and how do we help the customer gain confidence to execute against those changes.

Jeff Jones, who's the H&R Block CEO. Jeff, that's all we have time for today. Would love to continue the conversation though in the future. Appreciate it.

Thanks Brad. Good to see you.

Certainly.