BIG reason to not file your taxes with H&R Block

I have just had the worst 4 hours of my life thanks to H&R Block.

BACKGROUND:

I am a W-2 employee and make some extra income on the side that I claim on a 1099.
My wife is a W-2 employee only ths year she switched jobs so she had two W-2 (one from each employer)

We go to the H&R Block at 254 S Federal Hwy Deerfield Beach, FL 33441 to get our taxes done.

There a rep name Pee Jay is assigned to do our taxes. We sit down and I begin to explain our income to him. He then asks to see our W-2 (we have 3 of them), my 1099, our mortgage statement, our HELCO statement and my deduction receipt for the 1099.

Now just to let you know, I have already made a $7,000.00 payment towards my 1099 taxes (I always send in 33% of what I make) .

Fast forward after he enters all the information in, he tells us we owe around $3,500.00. I’m shocked at this point, actually I’m about ready to punch the guy. He tells me that I never paid my self-employment tax for my 1099. I tell him that I’ve already made a $7,000.00 payment against my 1099 income and that he should check his work and to make sure that he entered the payment properly into the system.

Pee Jay looks me straight in the eye and tells me that I’m wrong, the system is correct and I owe the money. I tell him again to check his work because I know there’s an error. He then gets the office manager (the guy who’s suppose to know everything) and they both look over the numbers, look at me and tell me that I owe $3500.00.

At this point I know if stay in this office anymore I would get arrested since I’m ready to fly off the handle. There is no way I could report $22,000.00 in income on my 1099 and pay $11,0000.00 in taxes on it. With that, I stand up, tell them to hand me back my papers, pack up our stuff and walk out.

I then call up our old Rolist accountant and ask him to look over our taxes and to get a second opinion.

Long story short, I was right, they screwed up and didn’t take the $7,000.00 into account, hence now I’m getting a nice return.

Also, while I was at my accountant’s, H&R Block called my house and told my wife that in fact THEY DID make a mistake and that we would be getting a refund (which was along the amount that my account said I would get). I called H&R Block back, talked to Pee Jay and told him that I should

a) make him personally pay the bill for my accountant’s services.
b) call the corporate office and write a formal complaint about him and his manager.

Another thing. My wife went in there about a month ago and they did a prelim tax return for her and told her that if she filed separately she would owe $625.00. While at my accountant’s, he ran her taxes as if she filed separately and determined that she should have gotten $345.00 back . Again they were wrong!

Let this be a warning as tax season is upon us. You most likely know, from previous years filings, what you should get back or owe . If something doesn’t look right, don’t stand there and take in the ass like a bitch, go get a second opinion even if it means paying for it. Remember the IRS is not going to get your filing and tell you that you overpaid, that is your responsibility!

Can you image if I would have rolled over and paid the $3500.00? Do you actually think that H&R Block would have called me up a week later and told me that they were wrong??? NO! Of course not!!!

The thing that really pisses me off is when I think about how many people walked into their offices and were told that they owed money but didn’t . Now granted I can afford the $3500.00 but I know a lot of people that couldn’t. How would a grandmother who’s retired and living off a fixed income of social security and a petition be able to afford an extra $3500.00? That would probably bankrupt them and all because the person at H&R Block was too proud to re-check their work.

The government should quit wasting their time with baseball and start investigating H&R Block. How could they hire people that make mistakes like this? Maybe they just don’t give a shit. Half the staff in the place looked like they just walked off the street. None of them were dressed professionally at all and I even had to point out things to Pee Jay a couple of times during the consultation.

If you have had your taxes done by H&R Block in the past, I would encourage you to get them redone by a professional accountant. You could have paid when you should have gotten a return or paid more then you should have.

(Side note: I’m sending the link to this post to H&R Block to show them what happened.)

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