H&R Double Check

[ILLMAS]

Has any of your clients ever come back and say you missed a deduction on my tax return? According to H&R, these are most commonly overlooked credits and deductions:

1. EIC for lower income workers

2. Mortgage Interest

3. Charitable Contributions

4. Student Deductions (Lifetime and Hope)

5. Job-hunting expenses

6. Medical expenses

7. To itemize or Not to Itemize

Source

http://www.napsnet.com/pdf_archive/116/56379.pdf

I agree with #3 and #6, many of my clients prefer not to include these amounts because they don't keep track of them, so they rather leave it out. What makes me laugh if they didn't provide you with the information at first, how are the going to provide the omitted info to H&R to double check??

[David1980]

The big ones or me are Sales Tax (could be where I live, no state income tax, but a lot of prior year returns I see where they itemized missed it completely or only got the state rate and not the local sales tax in there) and state credits for those who moved here who lived in states with an income tax (seems a lot of people spend all their time preparing the federal and then just add a state and hope the software completed the state for them.)

[michaelmars]

what about tax prep fees, i make sure mine are over the 2%, i just love giving my clients a tax deduction.

[Bart]

what about tax prep fees, i make sure mine are over the 2%, i just love giving my clients a tax deduction.

I thought the IRS set out fees when they made miscellaneous itemized deductions deductible only if they were in excess on 2% of your adjusted gross. Our fee immediately became at least 2% of AGI.

[Dan]

Has any of your clients ever come back and say you missed a deduction on my tax return? According to H&R, these are most commonly overlooked credits and deductions:

1. EIC for lower income workers

2. Mortgage Interest

3. Charitable Contributions

4. Student Deductions (Lifetime and Hope)

5. Job-hunting expenses

6. Medical expenses

7. To itemize or Not to Itemize

Source

http://www.napsnet.com/pdf_archive/116/56379.pdf

I agree with #3 and #6, many of my clients prefer not to include these amounts because they don't keep track of them, so they rather leave it out. What makes me laugh if they didn't provide you with the information at first, how are the going to provide the omitted info to H&R to double check??

Number 3, Most charities will send you your charitable Contribution.

Number 6, You can go to your pharmacy and get a print out of your medicine purchased during the

year. They willl provide that for you.

[taxtrio]

I understand that the charge for HR Block's "second look" is 29.95 charged to client just to look it over.

Of course there are additional charges for ammending the returns if something is found.

Problem is the preparer only gets 10.00 for doing a "second look".!! Not popular with the HRB Pros...especially since the way their software is set up they tell me it takes them over an hour to do the "second look". All for 10.00!!

Years back when I worked at Block we always offered to check a prior year return/ or return prepared elsewhere for a prospective client at NO CHARGE.... Now they charge for what we did for "free". I would check their returns over just to try to acquire a new client. But back then we would check the returns using our calculator and tax charts and our own tax knowledge... now they have to input into a computer to check it the way HRB wants them to.

Glad I'm long gone from there..

Taxtrio

[joanmcq]

I can check out a return by looking at it and asking a few questions. Who needs a computer program? Sheesh! I wonder if Block checks out if they missed putting in the AMT or claimed dependents they shouldn't have?

[Chowdahead]

I chuckle at Medical Expenses and Charitable Donations. The threshold for Medical Expenses to even count is a joke, unless someone has had a major medical procedure that required a large out-of-pocket payment.

The Charitable Deduction is a bit better, but still, most clients have no receipts or evidence. The savings are minuscule for most taxpayers, and don't warrant the risk of an audit.

Unless the person owns a home and pays a mortgage, most of the Schedule A deductions are useless, because the taxpayer will be better off taking the standard deduction in most cases. And even if the taxpayer owns a home and pays a mortgage, lately the interest on these homes is so high that they have a zero tax anyway.

In total, whichever amount the taxpayer could attain by amending their taxes for these deductions will be eaten up by HR Block fees anyway so it will mostly be a wash.

[joelgilb]

for anyone that has any real knowledge, (not H&R or Hewitt I might add). You can almost always look at a prior return and in just a few minutes with some ques determine if the return has errors. (do not mean to offend anyone that works for them that is on here, they do have a few good preparers, but you are the exception, why else would you be here?)

BUT>>>>> With the interpretation of tax law, you can give a return to 10 different Tax Professionals and you will get 10 different returns. Now which is correct, probably all of them!

I am not sure I am right on the source, but I think it was Money magazine that would go to several preparers and have the same return prepared. They would also go to more than one H&R office and do the same thing. The multi H&R office returns would be IDENTICAL (surprise surprise), but the other returns would all be different. Some more or less aggressive than the others.

So How aggressive is your client?

What a crock those ads are!!!

[joelgilb]

by the way

does anyone remember the class actions suits against both H&r and Jackson Hewitt just a couple of years ago?

And that IRS investigated hundreds of their offices!

[Maura]

Here is a link to a GAO study done a couple of years back. Does not say exactly who they visited other then large chain preparers.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06563t.pdf

[schirallicpa]

It's only mid February, and I'm amending my 5th 2007 H&R block return, with 2005 and 2006 returns being gathered up to check them!

[Maura]

I think as a community of Tax Professionals we should track the HRBlock returns we correct.

[Catherine]

I think as a community of Tax Professionals we should track the HRBlock returns we correct.

I call my former-H&RB folks my "refugees".

Catherine

[taxtrio]

My friends and former co-workers at HRB .... also "refugees".... I like that!

Some of them say they work for "Slaves-are-us". Ha Ha.

I keep telling them "There is life outside of Block".

Taxtrio