Review of IRS-Authorized E-Filer H&R Block 🌟🌟1/2

reveurgam (60)in #review • 5 years ago (edited)

This is my review of the 2018 IRS-Authorized tax e-filer, H&R Block. My original article, Review of IRS FreeFile Companies, became too big to keep as one article. Go there for all the details of my test of the 12 providers, and links to the reviews of each.

IRS FreeFile - Should I Use It? - Plus Earned Income & Child Credits is the prologue to this series - you may want to start there. It includes a chart based on both what the IRS reported about each provider and a few changes I made based on what I discovered, as well as other info about e-filing, including the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits, and my explanation of the criteria I used to test each provider.

I figured I wouldn't have any luck but most people probably won't encounter the problems I did. In any event, I suggest that you do the 1040 paper version (or you can edit the PDFs on your computer, which I think is easier) to make sure the provider you choose doesn't screw up before you e-file. Also, again, remember that I used special circumstances to test these providers - many people will not encounter these problems!

Note: "Option to donate to Presidential Election Campaign Fund:" refers to the opportunity to have $3 contributed to the election campaign, but doesn't cost you anything. It appears to come out of the taxes paid. It also pays for pediatric medical research.

Note: Customer Service Support types are those that are offered free-of-charge for free e-filing. Certain companies offer phone support for paying customers.

Note: The word "responsive" below is a programming word that means that the program changes what you see on the same page and ensuing pages. For example, if you answered "yes" to having gotten married this year, it would show you fields to enter info about your new spouse, but if you answered "no", that wouldn't appear or - if shown already - would disappear. Responsiveness is programming that is designed to make your experience more pleasing, easier and it adjusts to your screen-size (which is called "mobile first").

Given the complexity of tax laws these days, and the peculiarities of the scenario I set up, I am not surprised that every company had a problem helping me, and some either refused to or couldn't because of site limitations. All companies offered some sort of FAQ/written help section, but they varied in quality, completeness and accuracy.

THIS TEST SCENARIO DOES NOT TEST ALL POSSIBLE SPECIAL SITUATIONS, AND SOME ASPECTS OF IT ARE UNUSUAL, SO WHEN MAKING DECISIONS BASED ON THE REVIEWS I'VE PROVIDED, MAKE SURE TO TAKE THIS INTO CONSIDERATION BEFORE CHOOSING YOUR E-FILER.

H&R Block

🌟🌟1/2

Kansas City, MO
Summary: Recommended for most standard filers. Although it guides you, making filing pretty easy, it is so controlling that you can't over-ride it when it makes a mistake. Power users won't like that, and the special circumstances I tested for income were not supported. I was unable to get customer service chat to work for me, and the online phone callback program also didn't work.

Security & Confidence

Security: 3 security questions, 2-factor authentication via email, text message or Google Authenticator app
Claimed Security certificates: Norton Secured (link doesn't work), TRUSTe (confirmed)
BBB Accredited: Yes, since 2011
BBB Rating: A+
BBB consumer rating: 🌟.1 (136 reviews)
Trust Pilot consumer rating: 🌟 (29 reviews)
Consumer Affairs consumer rating: 🌟.8 (120 reviews)
Glassdoor employee rating: 🌟 🌟 🌟.5 (3.4k reviews)
Indeed employee rating: 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟.2 (10.4k reviews)
Google Safe Browsing: ok

User Experience

Completion mode: Guided most of the time, and less control to resolve errors. State filing is more self-guided, especially for credits.
Forms: It automatically decides a lot for you and provides no way to over-ride mistakes. Filing "other income" it didn't allow for most things. After switching to a W-2, the results changed.
Navigation: Triple dot menu with major areas that expand to show sections; back/next buttons, back button doesn't take you back to where you were if you jumped from one area to another
Interface: Responsive (although not completely on pages), comfortable, sophisticated
Helpful links to info: Yes, many, help appears in sidebar but doesn't scroll independently so if you're low on your screen you have to scroll back up to see help info. Help let's you give yes/no feedback.
Guarantee: Accuracy Guarantee it's very long but the gist of it is if they screw up your return, either through their advice or their program, they'll pay the fines and interest that resulted, up to a maximum of $10,000. There are a lot of terms and conditions, so read it.

Test Results

Filing status: Incorrectly chose qualifying widower because it didn't ask if my spouse was an alien, and it wouldn't let me fix it.
Option to donate to Presidential Election Campaign Fund: Yes (at the end)
Salary correctly indicated as employment instead of consultant income: No
Allowed me to report my full income easily: No, I had to add the unreported amount in "other" after completing the 1099-MISC.
SS-8 filing acknowledged: No
Reporting missing SSI/Medicare taxes (Form 8919): No
Leave a note to the IRS: No
Reporting Interest/Dividends with no 1099-INT/DIV: Yes
Reporting healthcare: Yes
Taking Additional Child Tax Credit: Income reported as "other" resulted in no Additional child credit. No, using "other income. $205 with 1099-MISC with or without "other". After switching to a W-2, $435.
Taking EITC: Income reported as "other" resulted in no EIC. $1,550 with 1099-MISC with or without "other". After switching to a W-2, $2,170.
Taking WI Homestead Tax Credit: After switching to 1099-MISC ( with or without "other income") and W-2, $684.
Errors: Incorrectly filled Milwaukee from zip code. Incorrectly chose my filing status."Explain amount" links didn't work for WI Homestead Tax Credit.
IRS refund: $0 with "other income." $1,167 using 1099-MISC. $2,605 with W-2.
State refund: $0 with "other income." $855 using 1099-MISC. $923 with W-2.
States supported: All
Fees: None
Customer Service: 🌟 4/15/19: There was no link to customer service anywhere that I could find in the interface - I had to use a search engine to find it. Just the fact that access to customer service is concealed is ridiculous! Calling their 800 number led me to talk to a robot, which wouldn't help me except to offer to set up an appointment at the nearest H&R office. Their chat and auto-phone call-in support didn't work correctly for me in Chrome, and didn't work at all in Edge, so I tried to have it dial in via Skype. I finally got past the automated system by asking for an agent when it was going to hang up, but after 15 minutes it connected me to the paid support team, and the lady there said I'd have to talk to the free-file agents, and when I asked her to report to IT about the broken link, she told me I'd have to request to talk to IT after that (she shouldve reported it herself) so I had to go back on hold with no way for a callback to connect to the free-file agents (50 minutes). I was told the only way to fix my filing status was to change my marital status to "single" instead of "widower." I asked her to tell IT about the broken link, then I told her about my income problem, at which point she put me on hold and threw me back into the queue (it said ANOTHER 60 minutes). I hung up. I found that the agents I spoke to were polite and helpful, but the free-file agent, Triana, had a tone to her voice after a while. The automated callback system never called me back. I got a a few emails per day from GetHuman.com, which provides the chat & phone features (that never worked for me), asking if I'd received a callback, so I clicked the link but it still never worked. It always said the wait time was 2 minutes. I attempted to respond to GetHuman's emails, but apparently they don't monitor that address, and there is no way to contact GetHuman posted on their website. In the end, between H&R Block's long wait, getting tossed back into an hour-long queue, and GetHuman's malfunctioning services (which could be a problem on my side, I admit, although I turned off advert & tracking blocking), this was a very disappointing experience for any customer to have. I tried to open the link in a different browser but it wouldn't open at all. I then tried Incognito. It claimed I hadn't entered all the info about my problem, which I had done several days ago, so I re-entered it all and waited. The attempt to initiate a callback from H&R didn't work and then it ended. When I pressed "Go", it aborted after a couple of seconds. I closed and re-opened Incognito and tried again with no luck. The same problem occurred using Tor browser. As far as I'm concerned, that's more effort than any customer should have to go through.
Support types: Chat, phone - I couldn't find this information without using a search engine, meaning they are trying to prevent people from contacting customer service, so I've given the link

If you see any incorrect or incomplete, or you want to comment or give feedback, please leave a comment. I had a problem with the editor blitzing some of the content when I saved it. This series of articles took me 1.5 weeks of solid work for more than 12 hours on most days. Please show your appreciation!

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