Website Spotlight: Visor Tax Prep

Visor, the tech-enabled tax service that brings done-for-you taxes at do-it-yourself prices, today announced their Series A round of funding. The $9 million round was led by Defy with participation from Unusual Ventures, SVB Capital as well as existing investors.

The tax code is complicated, with the average taxpayer spending 13 hours each year dealing with taxes. The tax system favors those who can afford to pay for experienced tax professionals. Visor is on a mission to democratize the industry and make sure that everyone is able to benefit from professional tax advisors.

Visor is done-for-you taxes at a DIY price, making full-service tax preparation affordable to everyone by combining in-house tax advisors with scalable technology. Visor’s technology streamlines the tax preparation processes, allowing Visor to offer tax returns starting at $99.

Visor specializes on clients who have recently gone through life and financial events like moving, switching jobs, getting married, buying a home and many more. Since all of these events impact taxes many people get stuck when doing their taxes and are afraid that they make a mistake and leave money on the table. Having a tax advisor there to do the heavy lifting and help answer questions speeds up the process and saves consumers time, all for about the price of a DIY solution.

For the coming tax season Visor will be launching a mobile app to make it even more convenient to stay in touch with your advisor and file your taxes on the go and on time.

I had a chance to do an interview to learn more; these were the points they shared.

1. A CPA can help you find deductions that you didn't even know you had and do some tax planning, saving you money not just this year but in future years. When you use tax software much of the work you do is data entry. On top of this, there are places where you can get stuck where you have to do endless research, using search engines and reading tax article just to find out whether something is deductible. With Visor, we handle all of this, saving you time and money
2. Most walk in tax shops have their own training programs that require that you take something like a 6-12 week tax class. A CPA's deep knowledge of taxes will help them to do things like the planning mentioned above.
3. Higher level professionals can deal with any tax situation that may arise and handle things like tax planning. They can also give great advice on things like retirement saving and it's tax implications (401k vs IRA vs Roth IRA, etc), something that I wouldn't personally trust to a person that has just taken a few tax classes (I say this having taken that tax class and been a preparer at the biggest "walk-in" tax company [off the record])
4. Visor builds technology for our CPAs that optimizes their workflow, making our CPAs and EA more efficient and passing the savings on to you. We also have an app coming out before this upcoming tax season that makes it even easier for you to chat with your tax pro, schedule a call and upload your documents.

About Visor:

Visor is the leading the tech-enabled tax service that brings done-for-you taxes at do-it-yourself prices. Founded in 2016, the San Francisco-based company is on a mission is to democratize access to premium tax expertise, helping the next generation reach its financial goals. In addition to preparing your annual return, Visor optimizes your finances by providing year-round tax advice at a flat fee. For additional information please visit: https://www.visor.com/

About Defy

Founded in 2016, Defy is a new venture firm exclusively focused on early Series A, an underserved part of the venture landscape. The firm launched in 2017 after closing its first fund of $151 million. Defy was co-founded by long-term venture capitalists Neil Sequeira and Trae Vassallo, with a goal to invest in entrepreneurs and companies looking to solve complex problems. Defy's focus is to help companies, after seed funding, mature and scale into companies ready for growth capital. The firm's founding team has more than 40 years experience in helping successful entrepreneurs grow companies like The Honest Company, Nest, Elemental, Dropcam and more. For additional information, please visit http://defy.vc./ Follow Defy @defyvc on Twitter.