2006-05-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

It must be comforting to walk into the doors of H&R Block, knowing that they offer all of those guarantees, but don't mention them to Gene P. (a psuedonym) who told me his story this past March. He'd been to the local H&R Block office and a tax professional there had prepared his tax return and got him a nice refund.

However, by the time that Gene P. got to my desk, H&R Block had already had to amend his 2005 return once, because the tax professional who had prepared the return had neglected to ask him if he had paid any points when he had refinanced his home that year. He had, and he had done some remodeling as a part of that re-fi, meaning the points were all deductible in that year. A rather large deduction, missed by that tax professional.

That caused Gene P. to bring me his return to further review just in case other things might have been missed, and fortunately they had missed only one. But the item missed was a deduction that made almost $7,000 of his income deductible, resulting in tax savings on the Federal level of over $1,000.

So I sent Gene P. back to that H&R Block office to get his return amended for a second time, to get his fees refunded as part of their guarantee and to save him the cost of having me prepare the second amendment. He did so, telling me that he would be back at my desk next year, swearing never again to let H&R Block prepare one of his tax returns, no matter what kind of guarantee they offered.

Now it is true that he ultimately got the maximum refund possible from H&R Block. After two amended returns and only because he consulted another tax professional outside Block to discover their error. He was fortunate that I didn't charge him for my service, or he would have lost money on the deal.

Do you have a horror story like this? If so, email me at taxmanca540@hotmail.com

2006-03-17T07:29:00.000-08:00

I was working on my book about H&R Block long before this year's bad press about them began with their making errors in their own tax return and then in the most recent news, being sued by New York's Attorney General on behalf of consumers to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars.

But this recent spate of bad press is forcing me to up the pace and therefore I am here to ask for your help. I need your stories of negative (and yes, positive) experiences in the storefront offices of the income tax preparation giant. Please email a brief description of what happened to you and which State it happened in to taxmanca540@hotmail.com. Everyone who send in a legitimate experience will get a response and be asked some questions about their experience. Your identity will be protected.

Also, I am looking for H&R employees, current and former, who are willing to be interviewed about their employment and experiences while employed by H&R. If you are willing to be interviewed, please send an email to the above email address with contact info.

Who am I? I am a former Block employee who worked as tax preparer, office manager, tax course instructor and who knows what else. I spent many years toiling away for Block before deciding to leave for work with another firm that pays quite a bit more.

Thanks for your help.

Inside the Block