H&R Block

H&R Block Reviews

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About H&R Block Reviews

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H&R Block is a tax preparation and financial services company that has been providing its clients with tax advice and assistance for over 60 years. With a network of over 10,000 retail tax offices in the U.S. and around the world, as well as an online tax filing platform, it offers both in-person and do-it-yourself tax preparation services.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Free basic file
  • In-person services
  • Max Refund Guarantee

Cons

  • In-person help can be pricey
  • Limited time for Refund Advance loans

Bottom Line

H&R Block offers tax services for every filer, including free basic 1040 returns. Customers can choose in-person tax help or a drop-and-go option for their taxes.

Featured Reviews

Verified
Ooltewah, TN

I have used H&R Block for the past five years and I am very satisfied with the service. I opt to pay the extra $29.95 and have access to my last seven years’ tax filings. I always...

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Verified
Bronx, NY

Have used them for many years. Excellent service, stand by accuracy, provide assistance. Friendly, pleasant and courteous. Some of their software needs improvement, though I have ...

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What is H&R Block?

H&R Block is a well-known tax preparation company that provides tax prep services to individuals and small businesses. Whether you want to do your taxes completely yourself, hand them off to a pro or get a mix of the two, there is an option for you. On average, H&R Block’s tax professionals have 10 years of experience and over 73 hours of training.

H&R Block uses several layers of security measures to ensure your data is protected when you file online or in person. In addition to web browsing encryption, the company has a security protection team that monitors data 24/7, regularly performing security audits.

H&R Block offers a wide range of resources and tools to help you make sense of your taxes. Its website features a wealth of helpful guides to help you understand the ins and outs of the tax code. You will also find calculators to help you estimate your tax refund and calculate your tax liability.

How does H&R Block work?

H&R Block provides in-person and electronic tax filing services. Customers can choose to file themselves through the guided software or use a dedicated tax professional. You can also use H&R Block for audit support. Just schedule a free consultation, and you will receive upfront pricing before starting.

To start using H&R Block, create an account on the website or visit your local office. The company offers walk-in services as well as an option to drop off your tax paperwork. It is best to schedule an appointment time, though — especially as the tax deadline draws near.

H&R Block services

H&R Block offers both DIY tax services and professional services. The following is available for taxpayers who prefer to file on their own:

  • Free online: For those with simple returns and standard IRS deductions, you might qualify for a free state and federal file.
  • Deluxe: This plan allows you to do itemized deductions and store your tax returns for six years.
  • Premium: With the premium plan, you can do everything the free and Deluxe plans can, plus file for rental income and investment income.
  • Self-employed: This is the highest level of DIY tax services available and includes every form you need for investment income and side business income and claiming business deductions.

Unlimited expert help can be added on to any of these levels for an additional fee. You can also have a tax professional file your taxes for you virtually or in person.

H&R Block pricing

Filing your taxes early can allow you to access discounts off H&R Block’s services.

The following prices are the retail prices of services at the time of publication, but you might be able to receive a discount.

  • Free online: $0 for qualifying taxpayers for federal and state files
  • Deluxe: $55 plus $37 for state
  • Premium: $75 plus $37 for state
  • Self-employed: $110 plus $37 for state
  • Add-on tax support for DIY filing: $70 plus additional state fees
  • Filing with a tax pro: Prices start at $85 plus additional state fees

H&R Block FAQ

Does H&R Block offer advanced refunds?

Yes, you can receive your refund as an advanced loan with a 0% annual percentage rate (APR) and no loan fees. However, these loans are usually only available several weeks before the April tax deadline, so if you wait to file, you can miss the chance to qualify.

What refund options does H&R Block offer?

Alongside the Refund Advance loan, customers can choose to have their refunds deposited on the H&R Block Emerald Prepaid Mastercard. Additionally, you can receive your refund as a direct deposit or check.

Does H&R Block offer a money-back guarantee?

H&R Block offers several guarantees to its customers, including a Maximum Refund Guarantee that ensures you'll get the biggest refund possible or your money back. It also offers a 100% Accuracy Guarantee, which means if it makes an error on your tax return that results in penalties or interest, H&R Block will pay those fees for you. Its satisfaction guarantee will refund you if you are not happy with the in-person services or the tax software.

Do I have to pay H&R Block upfront?

No, you can choose to have your payment for the service taken out of your tax refund. However, there is an extra $39 refund transfer fee to pay with your refund.

Do we recommend H&R Block?

H&R Block is a solid financial institution that's been around for over 60 years. It has helped file over 800 million returns worldwide since it first opened its doors. Its multiple guarantees make it a trustworthy tax company to try because if you do not get the best return or have an inaccurate return, H&R Block will make it right.

H&R Block Reviews

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Customer ServicePunctuality & SpeedStaff

Reviewed Sept. 21, 2023

I initially submitted my taxes through H&R Block on March 2nd, 2023. H&R Block failed to submit my taxes correctly, causing it to be rejected by the state on March 21st. I asked them on March 22nd to investigate why it had been rejected even after submitting multiple times. On March 23rd, H&R Block's tax service representative told me that it was "pending by the state." On that same day, I asked them what I could do to make sure the return went through correctly. They messaged me back on the 29th (claiming my message had not come through until six days later), telling me that as far as they knew, the return had been accepted.

However, by April 3rd, I was still getting automated notices from H&R Block that I needed to approve the return. On April 4th, the tax service representative still claimed that the returns had been approved. April 25th, I received a canned response, and I replied back on the 27th asking how I could get the returns approved. On May 16th, they responded with more canned messages. It turns out that H&R Block had not sent off my tax return at all until 6/26/2023. I had to call the Department of Revenue on June 14th, June 16th, June 30th, July 10th, and July 25th in order to find out what had gone wrong with filing. I finally simply filed the tax return by myself on August 18th. H&R Block sent me one more message on August 25th to admit that they had *not* been working on my return, but also to discourage me from fixing the problem on my own.

In summary, the tax service representatives at H&R Block deceived me into thinking that the returns had been taken care of, and refused to admit that there was an issue, even after I went through a months-long process to contact them multiple times over multiple platforms. I did everything in my power to help them perform the promised service I paid them for, but the due date had passed by the time I was able to circumvent their obstruction. As soon as I was able to figure out that H&R Block had not--and would not--file my return correctly, I had to do it myself, and deal with late fees on top of everything else.

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Customer Service

Reviewed July 19, 2023

Software kept using the wrong IRA deduction worksheet, despite having called customer service and "clearing the cookies and cache" as they told me. (Note that it's insane the accuracy of your taxes could depend on such a thing). They informed me that I'd get a call back to solve this issue. Call never came after two weeks. Finally I called again and they gave me a key code for "Tax Pro Review." Well, this is not a CPA. The "tax pro" is a tax analyst with minimal training in tax prep. After she returned it the THIRD time, still with errors, I politely informed her that I was going with another company, and requested a refund from HRB customer service, which they gave me. This company is good at making you feel like a small nothing in the machinery of big corporate bureaucracy.

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    Customer Service

    Reviewed July 12, 2023

    I filed a tax extension online. I needed to file my actual taxes, but it would not let. Hours of customer service, and it filed it incorrectly without tax-pro advisor review. Their system does not work.

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    Price

    Reviewed May 25, 2023

    H&R Block says they submitted my return correctly and that once submitted there is nothing they can do about it. (H&R Block Case #**) I authorized Direct Pay in the H&R Block software but the IRS never took the payment. The IRS says an "application for payment" was never made. I did not receive a payment confirmation number from H&R Block or the IRS even though I authorized it in the software. The on-line software was submitted correctly. H&R Block says the IRS is wrong. The IRS says H&R Block is wrong. Who is more incompetent - the IRS or H&R Block? Go figure. I've used H&R Block for years but no more. They never contacted me in regard to this problem after many inquiries from me. Now I will have to pay penalties and interest through no fault of mine. They have really, really gone downhill.

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    Customer ServiceOnline & AppStaff

    Reviewed May 2, 2023

    Not only did they sit on my taxes, holding my return hostage, refusing to file them due to an IT "glitch" that nobody can resolve (up until the week they were due), they are charging me money to hold my return hostage. Run far away from HR Block's online service, especially wasting money for a "tax pro". Unresponsive, tax pro says to contact CS, CS says tax pro has to do it, and they go back and forth with nobody offering to do anything. So here I am, in April, waiting multiple weeks for someone to fix the issue and simply send my taxes to the state. There is no "it department" or "tech support", just a bunch of customer service reps that can't do anything, except tell you to contact another department. I was fully ripped off out of my money (multiple hundred dollars) to have nothing but a headache, they couldn't even answer a question the time I used that service, and I had to figure it out myself.

    If you want someone to hold your taxes hostage over a simple technical support issue with their website, and rip you off, they are your people. They will make meetings with you which they will ignore, they will ignore your messages and emails and pinky swear they will return your call and will never return your call. I went through an unbelievable amount of stress due to their pathetic software and even more pathetic customer service that just didn't care about anything. They ended up making me print out a paper copy and making me mail it to the state. Now, my payment to the state, that went through their software, wasn't sent. I filed a BBB complaint and they said everything is A-okay and they consider it resolved. It is not resolved and I will not stop until I am issued a full refund for the hundreds of dollars I paid for the worst tax experience in decades. Get your crap together.

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    Verified purchase
    Customer ServicePunctuality & SpeedStaff

    Reviewed April 28, 2023

    Summary at the end. I booked the full package which includes a tax advisor that looks over all the data to make sure it is correct. In the beginning, for some reason the assigned tax advisor switched 2-3 times, but ok, as long as they get their job done it's fine with me. I sent in all my documents and the tax advisor wasn’t sure with what to do with one of them. Basically telling me, that I should file the taxes as she prepared them and IRS will make a decision. Then, when it was time to approve and sign the documents that the tax advisor finished, it only went downhill. There was no button or page that would get me to the approval process. I did all the standard stuff like clearing my cache, deleting cookies, trying another browser, another device, but nothing helped. So, I called the support line that my tax advisor pointed me to. Turns out, this was the support line for the internal H&R technical network support which couldn't help me at all.

    They forwarded me to the H&R customer support. After talking to them for a while they said that they couldn't help me and then I got transferred to another support. Here they walked me through all the standard steps again (cookies, cache, etc.) but of course that didn't help since I already did that. I urged them to push this to the next escalation level since I've already been on the phone for about 2 hours. So, they then opened a ticket for me (**) and told me that the tech guys will reach out to me in about 3-5 business days. Of course, a week later, I still didn't hear from anyone. Two weeks later, still no response. So I wrote them on Twitter and they gave me another phone number. I called that one and the guy working there knew immediately what was going on. They had a major update and the update basically had a huge bug where it would not redirect some customers to the correct URL for the approval process.

    He gave me the correct URL and then it finally worked. Then, when I thought everything was finished, two weeks later I received another email that my tax files are ready for approval and signature. I reached out to my tax advisor and she told me that they had another major technical error and basically I had to do the whole approval process again.

    So, to summarize: I paid over 200$ for the full service to not have to bother with anything and have an easy tax filing season. The tax advisor did not have the knowledge needed to do my taxes. Additionally, H&R Block managed it, that I spent WEEKS with trying to figure out THEIR technical issues. In the end I spent more time with technical issues than the time I would have needed doing everything on my own!

    They never ever got back to me on the open case for the technical issue I had with them (although a response was promised within 3-5 days). And on top of it, when I complained about their whole service, they opened up a case for that, customer service reached out to me to see how they could make it right, they told me that they’d get back to me on the same day and of course a week has passed and no one bothered to get back to me. Never in my life did I receive so little compared to what was promised during the sale.

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    Reviewed April 26, 2023

    I've filed my own tax return for 30+ years, never late. This year, I was early and about to file at the end of March, then saw HR Block keeps advertising and selling me their tax professional service. I made a huge mistake by paying for their review service. From there, all hell! 1st, my tax return was not filed until a month late which will incur IRS late penalty fees and interests. 2nd, HR Block imposed another $250 fee in addition to what I already paid for the review service, otherwise they won't allow me to file my return. 3rd, the tax professional was gone for the season and did not finish my review and filing. The only good thing was, I did get hold of two great ladies in their local office who helped me through this ordeal. Conclusion: don't hire HR Block. do it myself again next year. Can't count on them. I got screwed me big time this time.

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    Reviewed April 25, 2023

    I have used H&R Block for over 10 years to file my taxes online. I've always used the self-service option. During the 2022 tax year, my taxes became more complex so I paid the fees to hire an online so-called "professional". One of my state taxes were not filed. I was told this was due to a "system error". I immediately digitally resigned and resubmitted the documentation. No action was taken by H&R Block. Six days have elapsed after the tax deadline. H&R Block has yet to take any action nor have they contacted me. When trying to communicate with their staff via telephone they offer no resolution.

    I was in the middle of a sentence when the girl I was speaking to transferred me to some elevator music. The next person to answer the phone was oblivious to my situation. She informed that I was transferred to her and she didn't have any notes regarding my call. I had to start from the beginning to explain the situation. Once she heard enough she also abruptly transferred me. I asked the third person who answered the phone who she was. I was then hung up on.

    I have paid H&R Block for service that I have not received. Their handling of my taxes was EXTREMELY SLOPPY!! I will no longer do any business with this company. I HIGHLY ADVISE anyone else to seek a real professional that can live up to their advertisements and deliver quality customer service. H&R has FAILED to deliver anything.

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    Reviewed April 18, 2023

    I promised myself I was not going to pay a dollar to H&R block this year and I haven’t. I have however still had to spend hours of my time on the phone and online with them, and the IRS trying to sort out the mess that was made back in 2020 when I made the original mistake of engaging H&R Block’s services to complete my taxes.

    Back story: COVID was in full force, I had found myself in a very abusive relationship, it was the first time in my life I was filing joint taxes and I had made been put in the situation where I had to withdraw my retirement to continue to survive. I chose to enlist the professional services of H&R Block to ensure I was not making mistakes in my calculations. I selected a package with the peace of mind guarantee, I was sure that if I had a company like H&R Block behind me then I should be set.. Boy was I wrong!

    First the agent calculated things incorrectly because she was not familiar with the current laws. I went back through the taxes, recalculated everything myself, then went back over it with her step by step, at which point we resubmitted together. At this point the only service I was getting from H&R Block was the peace of mind guarantee, as I had done the tax calculations myself. This was the most important part, and the only thing that mattered (as far as H&R Block was concerned) I wanted to make sure I had that protection since the return was unusual at best for me, and I am not a "tax pro".

    Unfortunately to add to things, my then husband held out on a W2 until after the taxes had been submitted to the IRS. That brings me to us doing an amend. I contacted H&R Block to let them know I needed to Amend the taxes due to the missing W2. I provided the missing information. The H&R Block Tax Pro made her calculations, sent me forms to be signed and at this point I took her calculations as being good and I did not redo them myself. Turns out I should have, there was a large return due to the retirement withdraw and if there had been a tax owed because of the W2 that was withheld not being handled correctly it would have been massively easy to have taken care of it at that time.

    The first year that I learned there were funds due to IRS because of miscalculated taxes I called H&R block, the agents gave me the runaround about getting me back to the same woman who did my taxes the year before. This went on the entire tax season, I would be transferred to the location that she supposedly worked at (in a different state) to make an appointment, she would never call for these appointments, I would call to speak to her manager, I would leave message after message. What got me a response is leaving a review online of my experience.. I got an email from someone in an office asking what they could do for me, they said they would look into things.

    Here I am 2 years later, still dealing with the same problem. The peace of mind guarantee says you must contact H&R Block within 60days... I can't help but laugh when I read that. The first time I called and spoke to a rep and told them I had bought the product that said that H&R block would help me if something went wrong, they acted like they didn’t even know what I was talking about. I did not use the right words... I work in healthcare - definitely a form of customer service. I see people when they are not in their best form. If I wanted to play word games and act like I can’t help when my patients don’t say exactly the right thing, I would do a real disservice to all of my patients, and the industry I work for.

    I’m not asking H&R Block to do anything I didn’t first pay them to do. I’m not asking them to do anything they haven’t stated in black and white that they would do. I’m asking them to do what they claim to be in business to do. Help with taxes and stand behind their tax professionals. I have had my state, federal and tabor refunds intercepted ever since I started doing business with H&R Block. Something that has never happened to me before, and the IRS claims I still owe them money. Why? Hell if I know. I am doing everything I can to figure it out, I keep calling H&R Block but every time I call the only thing that happens is the agent wants to get me back in contact with the agent that screwed up my taxes originally back in 2020. She is the last person I want to speak to, on top of the fact I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in if the woman responded to messages… But please keep trying to put me back in contact..

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    Reviewed April 17, 2023

    I have been using H&R Block software for about 10 years and do have some background in accounting. The software has gone rapidly downhill. Two years ago, it way overcalculated my liability and I had to use a different software. This year, it calculated my liability as zero, which was definitely wrong. If I used H&R Block's info I would have been audited and had a huge bill. I had to go with another software again because I didn't want to get in trouble. H&R Block customer service is terrible and would not give me a refund, even when I explained the drastically different calculation with H&R versus the other software.

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    H&R Block Company Information

    Company Name:
    H&R Block
    Website:
    www.hrblock.com