Tony Bowen: Yes, thanks, Scott. There’s a lot in there. I’ll try to unpack it as I go through it. I mean looking at ’24, you’re right. I mean our guidance is getting in the range that we’ve set from a long-term perspective of 3% to 6%. But I think it’s a little bit more moderated. There’s not a specific headwind that we’re looking at, which is contrary to what we saw in ’23. As we talked about going into ’23, we expected the impact of the Emerald Card related to the rollback of the Child Tax Credit and a number of other things essentially being a headwind that we had to offset. Obviously, we had a very unusual tax season in ’23, and we’re overlapping that. We think it will return to normal. But obviously, we don’t have a crystal ball either.
So, I feel like we’ve set the revenue outlook at a place that’s achievable. We’ve also set EBITDA outlook at a place that’s growing faster than revenue, and essentially set EPS outlook at growing 10%. And I think all three of those combined, I feel really great about the outlook. And as we’ve talked about, to get to more the mid to higher end of the 3% to 6% revenue range, we have to have the imperatives delivering growth that we’re still in the early innings of, whether that be from Spruce, growing in services in Small Business, doing things in Block experience. But even without those, we have a business that’s growing top-line at a healthy level. We’ve got EBITDA growing faster and EPS growing, like I said, double digits, which is incredible on top of 9% growth this year.
And the one thing I said in the opening comments is we’re overlapping a pretty incredible tax rate change. I mean, we were about 15% ETR in ’22. And then in ’23, we went up 21%. But to still show EPS growth of 9%, I feel really, really good about. As far as how do we stack rank these things, I don’t think, in my head, I have that completely clear. I think all of them are additive. I mean, it starts with having healthy client volume in both Assisted and DIY. I mean that’s kind of the foundation. We then layer on pricing of low single-digits, as we talked about. The franchise buybacks can drive a point of revenue growth. And then — that’s essentially the key drivers of revenue. There are some other smaller puts and takes, but those are the big ones.
But then we’re obviously managing our expenses in a way that we can grow EBITDA faster than revenue. And then, obviously, the last driver getting to EPS is executing the share repurchase that, obviously, we’ve been doing consistently. So that’s how I think about it. I think there’s a lot of moving parts. But like I said, at the end of the day, growing EPS double digits is a pretty incredible feat, and I feel good about it.
Scott Schneeberger: Thanks, Tony. Good answer. You covered what I was looking for. As a follow-on to that, what are you expecting for expense inflation? You’re obviously guiding EBITDA growth faster than revenue growth. Just technology, labor, rent, overhead, marketing, anything changing dramatically year-over-year there? And how are you thinking about the inflation year-over-year? And you mentioned pricing of low-single digits. So just curious what the inflation assumption is on the cost side?
Tony Bowen: Yes. We’re definitely assuming inflation. I think it’s a little more moderate versus what we had last year. As you know, Scott, our largest expense line item, which is [tax pro labor] (ph), is essentially variable with revenues, so no direct inflation impact. But when you look at things like full-time wages of the broader team, we’re seeing those moderate in cost relative to what they were running from a year ago. We’re also seeing less turnover and less people leaving — a little bit less competition in the broader labor market. I think in some buckets like supplies and utilities, we’ll continue to see costs go up, but I’m hopeful and we built into our plan at a more moderated rate than what we were running at last year.
