H&R Block

Stay away! Had multiple issues with my filing, starting from them forgetting to file my property tax refund completely, later to find that my rental property depreciation schedule was not included, that created a taxable income for me. When I contacted the agency they apologized for not filing timely and I was told I could’ve qualified for full refund of all fees but I’m too late to file a claim as all claims should be filed within same year and I’m a month passed dead line. Ridiculous that they would offer best refund guaranty but only if you catch them with in same calendar year, most mistakes are found the following year when taxes reviewed, nice loophole they found just to offer something they don’t need to honor.

My fiancé and I met with Amy V. as we just purchased a home together, and wanted to make sure we would be able to maximize our refunds. Although Amy was personable, some of the information she gave us was simply incorrect —
1) She told us that because the seller paid part of the closing costs, including our portion of the taxes, we couldn’t deduct them. IRS Pub. 530 —
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2) She said she didn’t need to look at the HUD-​1 form. Had she done so, she would have caught a $ 1000 error on our 1098 statement relating to the points paid.
Further, she didn’t seem particularly experienced, despite having «12 years» under he belt according to the H&R Block website. The home purchase questions/​deductions should be simple to address… It’s not like we set up an S-​Corp with an irrevocable trust component.
We also asked her when the appointment got started what the costs would be. She indicated that she wouldn’t know until we were done. Really? No upfront pricing? Not even a ballpark? You only pay if your satisfied — but had I known the costs involved, I could have saved her the time and energy…
The cost was insane — $ 250+ for my fiancé alone — that was WITHOUT itemizing deductions — for the federal and two state returns. She indicated that mine (which itemized deductions) would have been more. So we’d be over $ 500 for the two of us.
I ended up doing his online (with H&R Block, actually), and paid under $ 100 (free for federal, $ 28×2 for each of us for Minnesota, $ 28 for my California return, and I will complete his return by hand) Not only did I save the H&R Block fees for going to the office for both me and my fiancé, I also saved myself an extra $ 1000+ by catching the errors listed above.