Article: The tax man groweth: franchising adds up for Jackson Hewitt.

John T. Hewitt had seen H&R Block competitors come and go by the time he founded Jackson Hewitt Tax Service in 1982. So what made him imagine he could create a franchise system that could compete with such a household name?

"I brought a number of things to the table that no one else did," says Hewitt, 47.

For starters, Hewitt began his career at H&R Block, becoming its youngest regional director in the country before he left in 1981 to develop a proprietary tax software program, called Hewtax, with his father.

The two were still developing the software when Hewitt purchased the six-store Mel Jackson Income Tax chain in 1982. Even then, he had no ...

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