h&r-block
(Photo: chadwbecks)
—>Poor Sam didn't take our advice. He let H&R Block do his taxes and then took out a refund anticipation loan. The money, which was deposited on an H&R Block Emerald Card, is now tied up by several inexplicable holds for transactions he didn't make. The companies supposedly holding the funds have no clue who Sam is, or why they'd be holding his money. H&R Block's only response is to charge Sam $2 whenever he calls their customer service line for help. More »
—>Last year H&R Block told the IRS that reader Tuyen made $33,000 in charitable donations. Tuyen, who earns $60,000 per year, collected a huge rebate, but when he returned to H&R Block this year, he learned that thanks to the screwup he now owes the IRS $10,000 in back taxes. More »
—>It's too late for this year's tax season (unless you're doing it wrong), but H&R has issued an apology of sorts by announcing it will give a $100 coupon or free TaxCut software to gay couples who were shut out of their online programs this year due to a programming oversight. Don't expect to take advantage of the offer if you were turned away online and went elsewhere, though—the offer is only good for "civil union, domestic and same sex partner clients, who started with TaxCut online and then completed their returns in one of our retail offices." If you fit that requirement, you can request the coupon or software here. More »
—>As an educated consumer you may wonder why people would choose to use a Refund Anticipation Loan when they can e-file and receive their refund in only a few days. More »
—>H&R Block recently got into trouble because when a Connecticut same-sex couple tried to file their taxes through H&R Block's website, the system spat back, ""We don't support Connecticut Civil Union returns." One of our readers wrote H&R Block about our post and their VP of Marketing actually wrote back to him to describe what she felt was media sensationalization of the story. She says that the problem happens because the Federal government doesn't recognize same-sex civil unions. The information for state tax returns gets inputted based on the federal, so in this specific case, it's not "flowing" correctly. It sounds like they're working on fixing that, though. Here's her email in full: More »
—>H&R Block is an extremely generous company! They've sent you a $5,666.10 refund check and you didn't even file your taxes with them! Isn't that nice? More »
After 23 months of same-sex, civil-union bliss, Jason Smith and Settimio Pisu had grown accustomed to some institutions being not quite ready for the concept of gay spouses. More »
—> Last week we wrote about I-Can! E-File, a free electronic filing service for your federal income taxes. It's a great idea, and we're thankful to the Legal Aid Society of Orange County for doing something like this—but you might want to find an alternative this year and give them some time to work out the kinks. Today a reader emailed us to point out that icanefile.org's password system can be easily cracked, because instead of letting you choose an original password, it requires you to use your name and social security number to set up an account. More »
—>I-CAN! is a web-based tax preparation tool that will file your tax return completely free of charge. I-CAN has no eligibility criteria or income restrictions and will eFile your state return for free if you live in California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania or Montana. It almost sounds too good to be true. So why isn't I-CAN! a member of the IRS' Free File Alliance? More »
—>Reader Justin writes in to tell us how to opt-out of H&R Block's arbitration clause in their 2007 Client Service Agreement. More »
