Today, I arrived home with to find the last W2 that we were waiting for had arrived. About a month ago, I got a free copy of H & R Block's TaxCut in the mail The front of the box makes it sound like you get to prepare AND file your taxes for free.
The downside- you can't file for free, just prepare for free. I get to the end, and it says it's time to file. I can print it and file for free, or e-file for $19.95 (which can be deducted from my tax return so that I'm not paying anything outright).
After some grumbling, I ended up agreeing to that. That's where another fee got tacked on- $29.95 for the "privlage" of letting them deduct $20 from my return. And, this is also the first page that breaks down that it's not $19.95 to file. It's $19.95 per federal AND state, so it's $39.90 to file both returns, plus the $29.95 fee, so filing with H & R Block costs me nearly as much as going into the office.
On top of that, half the questions don't have pointers, hints, or explainations as to exactly what they are trying to find out. This year, we had 1099-R to file along with 2 W2's. That's a first for us, but the parts for that are unclear.
I got lost several times, I can't use the info to file free elsewhere, and I wasted over an hour trying to figure it out, only to be told I'm going to be charged almost $70 to file a return!
Well, I'm off to start over... income wise, we qualify through irs.gov to file & prepare for free, so that's what I'm going to do.
I'm so ticked at H & R Block.
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Comments: 22
If you are going to do your taxes yourself, I recommend turbotax.com. It will even store your returns online for free.
I have never had to spend 385!!!
That is crazy.
Then again, I don't rush mine and do direct deposit. I think it is less that way.
Good luck!
Last year, we used turbotax.com, and it was free due to income. This year, they dropped the income amount from 54k to 30k for the free use, so we don't qualify anymore.
But, we do qualify for TaxACT, so we're going to use that one. I hope. Fingers crosed, I'm going back to start all over again. Grr...
I think I'll continue to do the paper and pencil version. :-)
We go into H&R Block personally every year because the woman there is a friend and always runs down all of the new laws before starting on ours officially. It is expensive but we always request the anticipation check and get it a day later which is great although they also take the benefit of charging you for that too! All in all everyone is out to make a buck legitimately or otherwise. I say to anyone who is filing to go to reputable places because there are alot of fly by night places that pop up every year come tax season and no one knows where they disappear to after tax season.
E-file is an advance feature. It means you can get your refund much quicker. If you want to take advantage of this feature, you got to pay it. You are not forced to select this feature.
State return is another independent feature.