28 Jan 2026 · 2 min
Jeff Watson and Luke discuss how tax refunds drive car sales, covering EITC timing, inventory challenges, and dealership prep work like stocking vehicles and checking batteries before the spring rush hits.
Chapters
Hey, Luke.
What's going on, man? Happy Monday. Hope you're geared up for an awesome, awesome week. We're starting to see some tax money, right?
I tell you, the. The big weekends that we get during tax season now are kind of unreal. And this past weekend sure was the. Sure was that way.
Oh, really? So you were busy, is that what you're saying?
Crazy busy. You know, I guess it really started. It really started on Tuesday. And I think we've just seen that tax money, you know, come in and. And our inventory is getting a little. Little weak now.
Yeah, well, that's good. Good information to have. It does seem like sometimes it's regional. You know, I don't know what that is because, you know, you go through phases where I think the week before we had some people saying that they were crazy, and it was crickets for me. But this last couple of days, through the weekend, yeah, obviously I see an uptick. Maybe my expectation was set too high, and I expected more. How do we gauge that? How do we gauge what is the modern tax season?
So if you remember, back to the tax max guest we had, he said that it was going to be, I mean, literally the 26th, when those earned income tax credit people started seeing the money, and that's really what we saw. They could start filing, I think, 15th or 16th, and the money started coming about 10 days later. So we need to listen to the people who do the taxes and know what the IRS is doing instead of, you know, the gut feeling that we. That we're all getting of when tax season should be. Because it's. It's really a science anymore. The IRS does it one day, and it releases the checks one day. So you really got to understand when the money's coming, and if you're not ready, if you're not ready for that time, you're going to be in trouble. And, you know, we're going to still. Are we gonna still see money? Yeah, we're gonna still see some money, Jeff, but you may get one more huge, you know, rush, but I think that's gonna be about it, you know, but hopefully that leads into a good march.
Yeah. And that's one thing I've kind of been thinking about was being ready. You know, I don't want to. You know, it's hard. You want to stock up. You want to make sure all your cars are looking good and they're ready to be sold because you don't want to have that guy or that customer that comes in, and maybe they are looking for that specific car. And you forgot to check the battery on this one, and it's dead, and it doesn't start, and it might turn them off completely. You know, I felt the anxiety to make sure that everything I have Frontline, is ready to go.
That's so important. Jeff and I encourage everybody this morning, before you really get going, doing anything, you need to get your porter out there. And if you're the porter, you need to get out there, you need to crank every car, you need to move the cars around, make sure the tires are aired up, all these things. Because sometimes you only get one chance to make that impression, and it's good to have it, you know, good impression the first time.
Absolutely. All right, Luke. Well, happy March to you and hope your week is great.