H&R Block

Taxes suck. Nobody likes doing them, but H&R Block makes the experience unbearable.
My wife and I used to use H&R Block every year for our taxes. Our tax situation is complicated and unfortunately we can’t just buy software and plug in some numbers. We used H&R Block when we lived down in California and they seemed to do a good job, so we tried to continue using them in Oregon.
The accountant we were assigned seemed very clueless on what to do. We sat down with her and she basically used TurboTax, punching in number after number. She then got to the documents that make our tax return complicated. She looked at us and said «I’ve never seen these before.»
After sending us home and consulting with one of her associates, she put the numbers in. We then went over to moving expenses. We thought we needed to separate the costs, but she insisted putting them in one lump sum. Since she was the tax expert, we shrugged and trusted her judgment. This was after being interrupted multiple times by other clients and phone calls.
After paying a hefty fee to get the taxes done, a few months later we were audited by the State of Oregon. When we brought this up to H&R Block, they basically threw their hands in the air and said they couldn’t help us since we didn’t get the guarantee guarantee of the guarantee that’s guaranteed to not get you audited guarantee.
Yeah, exactly.
So now we’re out hundreds of dollars due to our taxes not being done correctly and shame on us for not buying the proper coverage.
Good tax preparers should include audit help without an extra fee. H&R Block is nothing more than people that utilize TurboTax who try to upsell you things you should be given in the first place.
We used Account Ability in West Linn last year and we’re much more happy with their approach. They focused on us only and didn’t upsell us things.
Taxes suck, but H&R Block sucks more.

After being very nicely greeted at the door, I was presented with my tax «professional». This woman was rather blunt, and was not inquisitive at all. A bad personality I can handle, however a person who misses half the information needed until I probe enough for her to admit that it would be needed tells me that the standard for which this company holds their employees capability and knowledge is very, very low.
This year was different, I bought a house. Because of this, I didn’t do my taxes myself like usual (which has been consistently perfect by the way) but instead sought out a professional; somebody whom I would think would know much more about the tax structure and all the information needed to ensure I was as complete as possible. This «professional» did not address this at all until I was insistent on including it on my return.
She was also extremely inaccurate on data entry. I corrected her over 12 times on typos made on key items, like my son’s name, which was presented on a SS card right in front of her. This did not inspire much confidence, considering this should be an elementary task for a position that is so detail oriented.
By the end of the ordeal, I was left with a return that was several thousand dollars off, coming from a nearly identical income as the previous year and two big additional breaks along with a kicker. This now leaves me with the tedious task of rerunning all my taxes myself along with a legal supervisor so I can make an amendment.
To top it off, the service cost me 4x more than Turbotax did the previous year, which was absolutely accurate without fail. To make matters worse, this was done with false advertising as it was shown to be cheaper before the transaction had begun, with a hard number included.
The moral of the story, nobody should ever, ever, use this service.

For heavens sake, please dont trust yourself with h n r block for your taxes. I had a horrible experience with the ITIN filing for my wife, and to put short, she didnt get her ITIN filed thru H&R block after 3 painstaking months of constant going back and forth between me and the ‘experts’ in H&R. After hours of wasted time, gas, and money, I decided to ditch my ‘investment’ in H&R and I went to the IRS office in portland, where all it took was ONE visit, apprx an hr of wait time and thats it, she has her Tax Id # approved!
Also, earlier this year, I learnt that many experts in H&R missed to file the Cap Gains tax appropriately due to the recent changes in law.

My husband and I went went to the Murray Scholls H&R block to get someone to do our taxes because we were covering two marital statuses, three states, and two income brackets. The person who helped us was literally just driving the online software just like we could do at home for much cheaper. She could not get some of the state forms to work, it would not count one of us not both of us. The explanation: because «we don’t see these state’s forms that often». Mind you she was the one who said she specialized in out of state taxes for many years in her online profile…
After getting so fed up with watching her click back and forth between forms while not giving us a clear explanation about what was happening and why we should not file separately instead of jointly, we just said let the state charge us the extra money so that we can go home! Weeks later the state of Oregon (one of the forms that «worked») gave us our return with an extra $ 250 because the were filed incorrectly! SHE LIVED IN OREGON, THAT IS THE STATE FORM THEY ARE USED TO!
So $ 400 later — because it is so expensive to have someone do your taxes at H&R block — and at least one misfiling later (acknowledged by the state), with another because she couldn’t figure out how the form worked. We are never going back.
The only saving grace: it took an hour and a half to do our taxes.
Someone please let me know if you know a good accountant.