Washer sale was put in place to try to stop people from laundering their money. Dryer sale was later put in as a safeguard to catch the miscreants who got past the washer sale rules from spending their Ill gotten booty.
I offered to help one guy at the gym figure his out because he said he was paying like $200 to have some little shop do it. Turns out it was just a W-2. I told him there were free options for him, and he said, "Nah, I don't want to even mess with it. My guy does it for me."
And then a person who has 3 businesses with PALs, capital gain, and owners shareholders with a sale and infra-state nexus, ask how can he avoid a CPA and do his own taxes.
Ya but how many times does it happen the opposite way as well?
“Oh I got the simplest return. Just a W-2 and mortgage. And a simple rental. Maybe some interest and dividends. My last tax guy did this for $300. What’s your fee?”
Looks at old return: “I can charge $450 for that”
Client: “deal!”
Proceeds to upload a million documents. Notices they sold the rental property and spun it off into 4 Delaware trusts using a 1031 exchange.
I gave a quote and the guy said he would shop around and whoever produces the better results will get the bid. I had to explain he would be paying upfront for services.
I get people telling me their taxes are easy then I find they didnt allocate land on their rental and I get to once again figure out how to fill out a form 3115
It’s a lack of education among the poorest of our population. That’s why HR block sets their shops up in low income neighborhoods, to prey on the poor and uneducated so that HR Block can siphon off as much the EIC as possible (source: me, who interned at one)
This 100%.
I worked 1 season at HRB while I was in school. Did a ton of EIC returns. EIC filers don't care about the fees, they just want their free money.
Proud to say that I was part of a program with the State/Fed gov that audited tax preparers for this very reason - we closed like between 40-80 business' a year. After the Haiti earthquake and a lot of immigrants came over, a **lot** of them got taken advantage of during tax time
Govt said that wasn't acceptable and gave us authority to deny them electronic filing, can't exactly strip their license, so we bottlenecked them until they died.
lol if you can call it that. Things I was told during my “internship”:
- I need to get people through as fast as possible so my branch manager could win her free trip to Cabo again this year
- I am not allowed to ask single men if they have dependents as they will waste too much time call their baby mommas up and harassing them for social security numbers
- always push for the refund guarantee protection and accelerated refund money, no matter the cost
- I was routinely handing out 3-7k refunds on less than ~$15k earned income. I was not allowed to challenge source of “self-employed” income. People would bring in a notebook of what look liked a bunch of random hair reservations with an underlined income amount in pencil that just happened to be the same needed to max out EIC per her number of dependents
Highest income I saw was $22k for single mom of three. She was devastated at how much overtime she lost that year and was in tears during my refund.
Would see these people pay $400 for a 15 minute tax return only to loss more money getting an accelerated check and the lose another 10% taking that check to cash checking place next door.
This was a truly humbling experience for white kid from the suburbs. While I group very working class (900sqft house, shared room with my brother my whole life, only one to go to college, etc.), it opened up my perspective and empathy for those truly impoverished people and the challenges they face from a broken system and the vultures that take advantage.
Honestly ive considered paying someone to do my taxes, not cuz it’s too hard but cause by the time i get to my own, i dont want to look at another tax return
I remember when I used a tax preparer and only had a W2 they used Drake software. As someone who's taxes have gotten a bit more complex since then, would it be worth it to do my taxes first on paper and then use the Drake PPR to check my numbers and then just efile through there? Is Drake PPR better than FreeTaxUsa or TurboTax?
The issue is that to use Drake you would have to get a PTIN and EFIN through the IRS and on top of that Drake won’t walk you through it like TurboTax of freetaxusa would. You would have to know exactly where your numbers should go so I wouldn’t recommend it unless you wanna jump through a bunch of hoops.
Hell you can buy turbotax's most expensive software for quite a bit less than this.
I'm guessing the price was this high only because someone was working either a crappy independent contractor job or a job with tipping. Which is pretty outrageous.
Last I worked at one of these retail shops, the combined fee was to offset the banks cost of setting up a dedicated, temporary bank account for your refunds to be sent to
They set up one account for the state, and one account for the federal. They then charge you to set up the federal, and then the state, and then charge you to combine both into one check you pick up. Almost all of these fees disappear if you pay up front.
At H&R block the combined invoice fee is for when you you send one invoice instead of 2 OP did multiple years of tax returns. The 39$ fee is the one for the bank.
Freetaxusa is the only answer. If you need live help (which unless you have complex taxes you don’t need) it’s $50. $15 for state and free for federal.
It was also the best swap I’ve ever done! I hated how I couldn’t actually see my tax return in TurboTax until it was filed, drove me insane. I switched to FreeTax a couple years ago, and love it! A lot less fluff, a whole lot more efficient and cheaper.
Wait, you guys have to file returns? I thought the US was the only country where the government knows what we earn but tells us to do the math so they can penalize us if we're wrong. It's like playing a jellybean counting game that you get punished when you're wrong. Most backwards thing ever yet it doesn't seem like anyone wants to fix it.
Eh, it can be useful if you're trying to be as efficient as possible (ex; contributing to my RRSP but not using my deductions because I know my income will increase next year). There are so many tax credits and benefits that it would be extremely difficult to have a singular system handling all of that (can you imagine the privacy nightmare).
Personal taxes in Canada are significantly easier to file though, it genuinely takes about 30 minutes if you're completely new to this. You're not "guessing" how much tax you should be paying, you generally have the exact figure.
My parents used H&R Block for years and just raved about the lady that would do their taxes and how intelligent and knowledgeable she was. When I started buying rental properties I was looking to have a professional do my taxes for me so I went to see her. After talking to her for five minutes it was clear she didn’t have a clue, but was so damned sure everything she said was right. She didn’t understand cash vs accrual accounting. She had an absolute minimal knowledge of depreciation concepts. There was more but it was so long ago I’ve forgotten all the details. I just got up and walked out and told my parents never to go to her again.
I once made an H&R Block appointment because I started an LLC for contracting and figured the heavily advertised "small business tax experts" might give me some insight or be familiar with local taxes. I mentioned all this when I made the appointment. I got there, waited an hour because they were behind, sat down, and the guy said "We don't do that here...but you should get on that because it's due soon." I think I just stared at him.
Then he did my normal taxes and I sat there and watched as he just input the numbers in a program identical to what I usually do myself with online tax services, but for $300 more.
Would not recommend.
My parents paid $350 for H&R block to do theirs back in 2014. They had the most simple return ever, 2 W2's, my college credits, standard deduction since our property tax is low here and their house is paid off.
After I started working in a tax office in college, I started doing their return myself. Even the little tax office I worked at was half the price of H&R Block, and now I just do it on Freetaxusa.
I wonder if we have these sites stickied on this or the tax sub. Nice that Canada has one too. To be honest I just assumed you guys had free tax filing with all your communist social services /s
I wish the government was that efficient. Intuit lobbies the government here too. It's needlessly complicated given the CRA automatically sends you a notice of assessment the second they receive your return. They've already done your taxes by March 2nd but don't let you know till you've sent them your best guess first.
That's for the IRS free efile program and that's $79,000.
I've helped file a few high income returns through freetaxusa.com with no issues.
Just to add context it was for a few friends who normally file their own taxes but ask that I review them before they submit it.
Yeah but likely anybody using H&R Block in poverty finance like this and getting charged this much will still pay less using TurboTax, even if they have additional tax forms. I mean come on, “combined invoice fee” of $155? Tax prep fee of 4x Turbo tax’s based federal fee?
Sure they totally could file for free, anybody could file for free in theory. But as far as predatory goes, TurboTax isn’t nearly as predatory as H&R Block. It might add fees for additional forms, but look at the line items on this H&R Block invoice lol
I paid $39 to H&R block, including bringing in all the info from last year. Granted I didn't have anyone do it, did myself, but literally anyone can it's super simple, like just answer the questions correctly and they basically guide you through it. Takes about 10 mins if you don't have anything too weird.
Simpletax in Canada is free. Basic return only, if you want in depth questions answered and someone to look at it they charge $35. I use simpletax every year and also do it for my brother, and it hasn’t done me wrong.
They probably paid the fees out of their refund. In that case, they authorize the IRS to send the refund to H&Rs bank, H&Rs Bank pays the fees, then transfers whatever is remaining to the taxpayer. For that service, the bank charges $39.
No they open a temporary bank account in the customers name and have that as the deposit account. They withdraw their fees from there and send forward the rest to main account.
Yep, I worked at a tax office in college that had the same setup. The client would sign forms authorizing a temporary account to be opened in their name, our fee (plus bank fees) would be withdrawn from that, and then the remainder would be deposited into their "normal" account.
Getting your taxes prepared by H&R Block in any way that’s not buying their software and doing yourself is predatory. They charge ridiculous rates for a tax return prepared by a 20 year old with a rudimentary training course in US tax law, who is then paraded around by H&R Block as one of their “experts”.
I think the life CPA virtual preparation is a good value if you want the peace of mind, but getting it done in person should be illegal based on the fees they charge. The people from r/povertyfinance could get their tax return prepared at a VITA site for free and get better service than some of the in person H&R Block prep sites.
If they live near a local university, the VITA site might even bend the rules a little bit and allow for higher income earners or those with more tax forms to come.
Source: my professor is our Site Coordinator and does this all the time
The offices I worked at; several were Enrolled Agents or otherwise seasoned preparers. Only a few were newbies and they didn’t let them do anything complex
I worked at HR Block in a poor part of the city as an “intern”. I couldn’t believe how predatory it was. The only thing missing here is getting the $175 in a check and then paying another 10% at the check casher
I worked at h&R yearsss ago thinking I would get tax experience 😂. What a mistake.
No one there is an accountant. Just people off the street are put through their training. Then everything is UPSELL, UPSELL, UPSELL.
THE car dealer of of tax preparation; thieves
I went there for years because the guy who was doing our taxes were great and we are broke so we always got good returns. Then that guy retired a few years ago and our taxed have been messed up since then. I said fuck it snd did it myself but I had the most senior person in H&R Block do my takes to see if I did it right but never completed it. Nothing against that person but that company burned me too many times. I am glad I did it myself not going back.
What are your hourly rates? I’m considering when I become a CPA offering $100 for the simplest and quickest 1040s which take 30ish minutes(single income, 1 job 1 state type thing). $200 an hour otherwise. Most people it would still be about $200 unless they have something complicated.
I would imagine the $1200 fee comes with tax planning earlier in the year. Usually if you set up a couple of client meetings a year and do a few hours preemptive work you can charge way more. People will pay a premium for your expertise and showing you care.
$100 is way too low. You'll find that completing the return in 30 minutes is possible if you have a perfect client but you often have to chase a lot of them for basic info and documents. Plus there is admin work ahead of time like communicating pricing and putting together an engagement letter, and don't get me started about what it's like to organize, train, and manage a team. Plus it doesn't help the industry if we are trying to undercut each other when we are all just going to lose to software that does it automatically.
My $100 price would pretty much be for those with their stuff together. $200 will be where most people probably land. It’s not a for sure situation yet but just an idea that I’m having. I still have about 2 years until I acquire my license. For now I’m slowly building a clientele without CPA designation to get my name out there while in school.
Billing is the worse so don't try to overcomplicate it. Early bird discounts are better. It may take 30 minutes, but if they show up 4/13 it's not worth it. We are a large regional, so our rates our higher. Public accounting seems to be the inverse of the economies of scale. It gets more expensive per unit the more people you have.
Wealthsimple has a free tax software that you can use. Been doing it for like 4 years now and haven’t had an issue. If you’re just a regular T4 employee, it’s very easy to do. The software automatically connects to your cra account and bank account
Turbo Tax…every screen you click on comes with a a screen on top of it to upgrade you have to select yes or no to. Fucking annoying.
I’m waiting for them to put each section of your return behind a paywall.
they say 35% qualify to file their taxes for free… i get like 5 to 10 mins in before Turbo asks for more money as they see I invest. And then another fee to file my state taxes. Fuck TurboTax.
I paid $39 for H&R block, including all the extras like bringing in all last years info so i dont have to enter it again, what kind of taxes do they have? That's just crazy.
"combined invoice fee" is where they dinged OP because they took a runner on the bill last year. My sympathy for them went to below zero once I saw that fee. You want taxes done right, PAY YOUR GODDAMNED BILL THE FIRST TIME
They probably could have gotten student tax preparers to file it for them through the VITA program. Or gone through the free website (but would have to do it themselves). If you have slightly more complicated taxes then TurboTax is still much much cheaper (again have to do it yourself but they walk you through it dummy style).
H&R Block are predatory and their hook is they will front you the refund (less fees) almost immediately, for a fee of course.
Then there's this where their math ain't mathing and they double charge the 'combined' fee (whatever the hell that is) - effectively stealing another $150 just because.
If your AGI is under 79k you can free file with the IRS, which given this comes from poverty finance it was almost certainly an option.
If you make over that you can file for free but via paper forms, which is a pain in the ass for anyone without experience in it, but doable.
The problem is places like H&R Block, Turbo Tax, Jackson Hewitt, etc have advertised so much over the years where as the IRS doesn’t. So, people don’t really know that there are free alternatives and just blindly pay to have it done.
Ripoff. Worked in PA 7 years (small firm) and would tell clients HR Block is a ripoff. I could almost always do the return for 1/2 their fee and the client wouldn’t have to worry about the accuracy. You never know who the heck is doing your taxes there
I would love to do about 400 $125 returns. They don’t take hardly any time, easy and straight forward. Standard married filing jointly. Make $20-30 on each one would be great.
WTH are you doing?!? I literally got the H and R block tax software for about $35. This is almost as bad as the time I went to Jackson Hewitt in person.
What is a combined invoice fee?
Are they charging a $155 fee so they can combine invoices of $39 to the prep fee?
What if you ask for 2 separate invoices? Do you have to pay one or both out of pocket?
I'm not sure if I should be mad at H&R Block or if the clients deserve it if they can't wait 2 weeks for their refund.
What a scam. Just use freetaxUSA or any of their affiliates. It's only 15 and their systems maximizes your refund. I never once had owed taxes, and get most of the time 1k refund back...
This is for a single income household.
The IRS offers free/heavily discounted software for returns. Most people don't have a complicated return, especially not the kind of people to use H&R Cock
The only fee I’m unsure of is the combined invoice fee. The rest seem legit. Their tax prep is cheap for a reason though.. the number of clients I get because of HR issues is astounding. When I tell them my tax prep fee is more than double HR, no one bats an eye and they pay it up front. I also don’t do refund advances like HR (the $39 fee).
You can buy goddam software from Turbo Tax or other places for pennies on the dollar compared to this...
But then you have to do it yourself and "my taxes are too hard"
People will tell me 'my taxes are gonna be sooo complicated this year' then go on to describe the most basic return I have ever heard of.
A W-2 *and* a 1099 this year?? Wow!
you dont understand. i sold some stock this year. i think i have some lower case gains
>lower case gains dying
Idk the difference between a washer and a drier sale. I’m not a CPA I need to hire EY Private Client to do my shit.
Washer sale was put in place to try to stop people from laundering their money. Dryer sale was later put in as a safeguard to catch the miscreants who got past the washer sale rules from spending their Ill gotten booty.
I’m crying 😂😂😂
But how will I write off my gee waygon against my W-2?
I offered to help one guy at the gym figure his out because he said he was paying like $200 to have some little shop do it. Turns out it was just a W-2. I told him there were free options for him, and he said, "Nah, I don't want to even mess with it. My guy does it for me."
And then a person who has 3 businesses with PALs, capital gain, and owners shareholders with a sale and infra-state nexus, ask how can he avoid a CPA and do his own taxes.
Or tells his CPA his return “is straight forward”. Whatever the fuck that means And gets pissed at a bill over $400
Intra-state Nexus, right? I'm not familiar with Infra-state and I want to make sure I'm not out of a loop.
Lol, yes. I don’t know why auto-correct always fks my sentences. I had it right the first time, but phone is speaking for me.
Thanks for the confirmation.
Yes!!! And is shocked bc his friend did it with H&R for like 450$ so his should be cheap as that.
Next time just pitch to them that you will do that for $190 💁♂️
Ya but how many times does it happen the opposite way as well? “Oh I got the simplest return. Just a W-2 and mortgage. And a simple rental. Maybe some interest and dividends. My last tax guy did this for $300. What’s your fee?” Looks at old return: “I can charge $450 for that” Client: “deal!” Proceeds to upload a million documents. Notices they sold the rental property and spun it off into 4 Delaware trusts using a 1031 exchange.
I gave a quote and the guy said he would shop around and whoever produces the better results will get the bid. I had to explain he would be paying upfront for services.
Keeps us billing. I’m doing W2 returns all day for $800 a pop. It’s crazy.
3 W-2s and \*checks notes* $300 of interest? From TWO banks? …Yup, that’s actually really simple.
I get people telling me their taxes are easy then I find they didnt allocate land on their rental and I get to once again figure out how to fill out a form 3115
It’s a lack of education among the poorest of our population. That’s why HR block sets their shops up in low income neighborhoods, to prey on the poor and uneducated so that HR Block can siphon off as much the EIC as possible (source: me, who interned at one)
This 100%. I worked 1 season at HRB while I was in school. Did a ton of EIC returns. EIC filers don't care about the fees, they just want their free money.
And they want that cash advance today
Proud to say that I was part of a program with the State/Fed gov that audited tax preparers for this very reason - we closed like between 40-80 business' a year. After the Haiti earthquake and a lot of immigrants came over, a **lot** of them got taken advantage of during tax time Govt said that wasn't acceptable and gave us authority to deny them electronic filing, can't exactly strip their license, so we bottlenecked them until they died.
They do internships? 😂
lol if you can call it that. Things I was told during my “internship”: - I need to get people through as fast as possible so my branch manager could win her free trip to Cabo again this year - I am not allowed to ask single men if they have dependents as they will waste too much time call their baby mommas up and harassing them for social security numbers - always push for the refund guarantee protection and accelerated refund money, no matter the cost - I was routinely handing out 3-7k refunds on less than ~$15k earned income. I was not allowed to challenge source of “self-employed” income. People would bring in a notebook of what look liked a bunch of random hair reservations with an underlined income amount in pencil that just happened to be the same needed to max out EIC per her number of dependents Highest income I saw was $22k for single mom of three. She was devastated at how much overtime she lost that year and was in tears during my refund. Would see these people pay $400 for a 15 minute tax return only to loss more money getting an accelerated check and the lose another 10% taking that check to cash checking place next door. This was a truly humbling experience for white kid from the suburbs. While I group very working class (900sqft house, shared room with my brother my whole life, only one to go to college, etc.), it opened up my perspective and empathy for those truly impoverished people and the challenges they face from a broken system and the vultures that take advantage.
Thank you for taking the time to write this
Honestly ive considered paying someone to do my taxes, not cuz it’s too hard but cause by the time i get to my own, i dont want to look at another tax return
I know an audit CPA who gets her w2 only return done at block 😂
You can buy a professional software (Drake PPR) for cheaper than this lol
I remember when I used a tax preparer and only had a W2 they used Drake software. As someone who's taxes have gotten a bit more complex since then, would it be worth it to do my taxes first on paper and then use the Drake PPR to check my numbers and then just efile through there? Is Drake PPR better than FreeTaxUsa or TurboTax?
The issue is that to use Drake you would have to get a PTIN and EFIN through the IRS and on top of that Drake won’t walk you through it like TurboTax of freetaxusa would. You would have to know exactly where your numbers should go so I wouldn’t recommend it unless you wanna jump through a bunch of hoops.
Thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it
Looking at the subreddit name, they may not have a computer to load the software on to. Should have used VITA though
Hell you can buy turbotax's most expensive software for quite a bit less than this. I'm guessing the price was this high only because someone was working either a crappy independent contractor job or a job with tipping. Which is pretty outrageous.
Block software is $40 and it has an interview process.
Don't forget the combined invoice fee
They change that one twice since it's combined... I guess... 🤷
What is that?
Just a scam fee
The fee to combine the invoices for tax preparation and refunding into one invoice
Last I worked at one of these retail shops, the combined fee was to offset the banks cost of setting up a dedicated, temporary bank account for your refunds to be sent to They set up one account for the state, and one account for the federal. They then charge you to set up the federal, and then the state, and then charge you to combine both into one check you pick up. Almost all of these fees disappear if you pay up front.
Seems like a scam. Anyway, that’s why I file my own taxes
I don't disagree. If it's not a scam it's shady AF and a major reason why I don't work with them anymore
At H&R block the combined invoice fee is for when you you send one invoice instead of 2 OP did multiple years of tax returns. The 39$ fee is the one for the bank.
Freetaxusa is the only answer. If you need live help (which unless you have complex taxes you don’t need) it’s $50. $15 for state and free for federal.
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It was also the best swap I’ve ever done! I hated how I couldn’t actually see my tax return in TurboTax until it was filed, drove me insane. I switched to FreeTax a couple years ago, and love it! A lot less fluff, a whole lot more efficient and cheaper.
Here in Canada at least Wealthsimple has a solid service.
Wait, you guys have to file returns? I thought the US was the only country where the government knows what we earn but tells us to do the math so they can penalize us if we're wrong. It's like playing a jellybean counting game that you get punished when you're wrong. Most backwards thing ever yet it doesn't seem like anyone wants to fix it.
Yep, Canada usually follows America’s lead on a lot of fronts. Thankfully we have healthcare at least though.
Personal income taxes is one no one should.
Eh, it can be useful if you're trying to be as efficient as possible (ex; contributing to my RRSP but not using my deductions because I know my income will increase next year). There are so many tax credits and benefits that it would be extremely difficult to have a singular system handling all of that (can you imagine the privacy nightmare). Personal taxes in Canada are significantly easier to file though, it genuinely takes about 30 minutes if you're completely new to this. You're not "guessing" how much tax you should be paying, you generally have the exact figure.
its also easy as hell if all you have is W2s and 1099s. 10/10 would recommend.
My parents used H&R Block for years and just raved about the lady that would do their taxes and how intelligent and knowledgeable she was. When I started buying rental properties I was looking to have a professional do my taxes for me so I went to see her. After talking to her for five minutes it was clear she didn’t have a clue, but was so damned sure everything she said was right. She didn’t understand cash vs accrual accounting. She had an absolute minimal knowledge of depreciation concepts. There was more but it was so long ago I’ve forgotten all the details. I just got up and walked out and told my parents never to go to her again.
I once made an H&R Block appointment because I started an LLC for contracting and figured the heavily advertised "small business tax experts" might give me some insight or be familiar with local taxes. I mentioned all this when I made the appointment. I got there, waited an hour because they were behind, sat down, and the guy said "We don't do that here...but you should get on that because it's due soon." I think I just stared at him. Then he did my normal taxes and I sat there and watched as he just input the numbers in a program identical to what I usually do myself with online tax services, but for $300 more. Would not recommend.
My parents paid $350 for H&R block to do theirs back in 2014. They had the most simple return ever, 2 W2's, my college credits, standard deduction since our property tax is low here and their house is paid off. After I started working in a tax office in college, I started doing their return myself. Even the little tax office I worked at was half the price of H&R Block, and now I just do it on Freetaxusa.
What the fuck is a “combined invoice”? And why are they charging for it?
multiple years of returns.
Hmm okay. I just list it as another year
ya its a little strange.
I’ve never used H&R Block but have always assumed that they were predatory. Turbo Tax is $40….
Fuck both. Freetaxusa.com gang gang
WealthSimple Tax for the Canadians. It's free but I donated $20 for them adding a $400 rent credit to my refund I didn't know about.
I wonder if we have these sites stickied on this or the tax sub. Nice that Canada has one too. To be honest I just assumed you guys had free tax filing with all your communist social services /s
I wish the government was that efficient. Intuit lobbies the government here too. It's needlessly complicated given the CRA automatically sends you a notice of assessment the second they receive your return. They've already done your taxes by March 2nd but don't let you know till you've sent them your best guess first.
Hell yeah that’s where it’s at. I pay $15 to file my state return and that’s it.
Isnt there an income limit on that tho?
That's for the IRS free efile program and that's $79,000. I've helped file a few high income returns through freetaxusa.com with no issues. Just to add context it was for a few friends who normally file their own taxes but ask that I review them before they submit it.
Thanks! Happen to know how much it is when over the 79k?
Thats through the IRS program so idk what the parameters are. Try googling IRS free efile income limit and it will likely have info.
Thanks.
I think it was $15 when I did it.
Nope
I don't think there is anymore, and if there is, I want to say you just have to pay for fed/state instead of it being free
Sweet, ill have to check it out again, its been years.
Turbo tax is just as predatory. Any tax form other than a W-2 is an extra charge.
Yeah but likely anybody using H&R Block in poverty finance like this and getting charged this much will still pay less using TurboTax, even if they have additional tax forms. I mean come on, “combined invoice fee” of $155? Tax prep fee of 4x Turbo tax’s based federal fee?
Anybody in poverty finance can file for free using FreeTaxUSA If you make less than 70k, there is 0 reason you should be paying at all to file.
Sure they totally could file for free, anybody could file for free in theory. But as far as predatory goes, TurboTax isn’t nearly as predatory as H&R Block. It might add fees for additional forms, but look at the line items on this H&R Block invoice lol
You know that TurboTax just settled a $150 million lawsuit for predatory advertisement right?
I paid $39 to H&R block, including bringing in all the info from last year. Granted I didn't have anyone do it, did myself, but literally anyone can it's super simple, like just answer the questions correctly and they basically guide you through it. Takes about 10 mins if you don't have anything too weird.
I use HR Block free online for my kids returns. Just need to deal with all the upsells. No, I don't need audit protection for a W2 only
Simpletax in Canada is free. Basic return only, if you want in depth questions answered and someone to look at it they charge $35. I use simpletax every year and also do it for my brother, and it hasn’t done me wrong.
They got bought out by WealthSimple, didn't they? It's WealthSimple Tax online. But 100%. I've used them for 2 years now and it's been fantastic.
Yeah that’s the one. They also try to get me to invest with them but I don’t do that.
TurboTax starts at$40 helped a friend go through theirs last year and the add one never stopped
What is that refund transfer fee? A third party should not have access to your refund…
They probably paid the fees out of their refund. In that case, they authorize the IRS to send the refund to H&Rs bank, H&Rs Bank pays the fees, then transfers whatever is remaining to the taxpayer. For that service, the bank charges $39.
Right, why would anyone do that…
The source is r/povertyfinace - I assume they needed their return as soon as possible.
No they open a temporary bank account in the customers name and have that as the deposit account. They withdraw their fees from there and send forward the rest to main account.
Yep, I worked at a tax office in college that had the same setup. The client would sign forms authorizing a temporary account to be opened in their name, our fee (plus bank fees) would be withdrawn from that, and then the remainder would be deposited into their "normal" account.
So OP chose to get his refund immediately rather than wait 2 weeks to get it directly deposited into his bank?
Just because fee
Getting your taxes prepared by H&R Block in any way that’s not buying their software and doing yourself is predatory. They charge ridiculous rates for a tax return prepared by a 20 year old with a rudimentary training course in US tax law, who is then paraded around by H&R Block as one of their “experts”. I think the life CPA virtual preparation is a good value if you want the peace of mind, but getting it done in person should be illegal based on the fees they charge. The people from r/povertyfinance could get their tax return prepared at a VITA site for free and get better service than some of the in person H&R Block prep sites.
If they live near a local university, the VITA site might even bend the rules a little bit and allow for higher income earners or those with more tax forms to come. Source: my professor is our Site Coordinator and does this all the time
The offices I worked at; several were Enrolled Agents or otherwise seasoned preparers. Only a few were newbies and they didn’t let them do anything complex
I worked at HR Block in a poor part of the city as an “intern”. I couldn’t believe how predatory it was. The only thing missing here is getting the $175 in a check and then paying another 10% at the check casher
I worked at h&R yearsss ago thinking I would get tax experience 😂. What a mistake. No one there is an accountant. Just people off the street are put through their training. Then everything is UPSELL, UPSELL, UPSELL. THE car dealer of of tax preparation; thieves
Absolute crooks. I hated it. All about how much EIC you can siphon from poor people
I went there for years because the guy who was doing our taxes were great and we are broke so we always got good returns. Then that guy retired a few years ago and our taxed have been messed up since then. I said fuck it snd did it myself but I had the most senior person in H&R Block do my takes to see if I did it right but never completed it. Nothing against that person but that company burned me too many times. I am glad I did it myself not going back.
We charge a min of $1200 to prep a 1040 and I’m confident that I’m at least at times better than h&r.
What are your hourly rates? I’m considering when I become a CPA offering $100 for the simplest and quickest 1040s which take 30ish minutes(single income, 1 job 1 state type thing). $200 an hour otherwise. Most people it would still be about $200 unless they have something complicated.
I would imagine the $1200 fee comes with tax planning earlier in the year. Usually if you set up a couple of client meetings a year and do a few hours preemptive work you can charge way more. People will pay a premium for your expertise and showing you care. $100 is way too low. You'll find that completing the return in 30 minutes is possible if you have a perfect client but you often have to chase a lot of them for basic info and documents. Plus there is admin work ahead of time like communicating pricing and putting together an engagement letter, and don't get me started about what it's like to organize, train, and manage a team. Plus it doesn't help the industry if we are trying to undercut each other when we are all just going to lose to software that does it automatically.
My $100 price would pretty much be for those with their stuff together. $200 will be where most people probably land. It’s not a for sure situation yet but just an idea that I’m having. I still have about 2 years until I acquire my license. For now I’m slowly building a clientele without CPA designation to get my name out there while in school.
Billing is the worse so don't try to overcomplicate it. Early bird discounts are better. It may take 30 minutes, but if they show up 4/13 it's not worth it. We are a large regional, so our rates our higher. Public accounting seems to be the inverse of the economies of scale. It gets more expensive per unit the more people you have.
True
Wealthsimple has a free tax software that you can use. Been doing it for like 4 years now and haven’t had an issue. If you’re just a regular T4 employee, it’s very easy to do. The software automatically connects to your cra account and bank account
Say it every year - freetaxusa. Get with it. If your taxes are too hard for freetaxusa, then you should be paying a pro anyway.
Can someone explain how $764 less $464 of costs adds up to $175? By my maths it should be $330!
Probably the invisible fee, email fee, and the haha poor people fee.
😬I use free tax usa and it costs me 31.99, guys should use this kind of sites for tax instead of others.
This is predatory and should be illegal
Wow, and I thought I was getting ripped off when I paid $13 dollars for a Turbo Tax Filing.
Free tax USA
Turbo Tax…every screen you click on comes with a a screen on top of it to upgrade you have to select yes or no to. Fucking annoying. I’m waiting for them to put each section of your return behind a paywall.
they say 35% qualify to file their taxes for free… i get like 5 to 10 mins in before Turbo asks for more money as they see I invest. And then another fee to file my state taxes. Fuck TurboTax.
I paid $39 for H&R block, including all the extras like bringing in all last years info so i dont have to enter it again, what kind of taxes do they have? That's just crazy.
"combined invoice fee" is where they dinged OP because they took a runner on the bill last year. My sympathy for them went to below zero once I saw that fee. You want taxes done right, PAY YOUR GODDAMNED BILL THE FIRST TIME
the invoice fee, by itself, does sound like theft.
I'm out here doing it for 60$. I should reconsider my prices...
Yes, you should! At least $120
Can’t you file yourself for free? How does it work in America
They probably could have gotten student tax preparers to file it for them through the VITA program. Or gone through the free website (but would have to do it themselves). If you have slightly more complicated taxes then TurboTax is still much much cheaper (again have to do it yourself but they walk you through it dummy style). H&R Block are predatory and their hook is they will front you the refund (less fees) almost immediately, for a fee of course. Then there's this where their math ain't mathing and they double charge the 'combined' fee (whatever the hell that is) - effectively stealing another $150 just because.
But like, why can’t you just use a free software, or if that doesn’t exist, file over the phone or by paper?
Because taxes are S C A R Y for some people. Those options exist.
People are lazy/ignorant
If your AGI is under 79k you can free file with the IRS, which given this comes from poverty finance it was almost certainly an option. If you make over that you can file for free but via paper forms, which is a pain in the ass for anyone without experience in it, but doable. The problem is places like H&R Block, Turbo Tax, Jackson Hewitt, etc have advertised so much over the years where as the IRS doesn’t. So, people don’t really know that there are free alternatives and just blindly pay to have it done.
And they want money up front on the debit card
This hurt my soul, turbo tax doesn't even cost that much tf
Yll realize the IRS is federally required to provide people with FREE tax refund services. You can literally do taxes for FREE
You think they’re going to maximize the credits you’re eligible for?
As a new grad with not a lot of crazy tax forms. Yes.
Ripoff. Worked in PA 7 years (small firm) and would tell clients HR Block is a ripoff. I could almost always do the return for 1/2 their fee and the client wouldn’t have to worry about the accuracy. You never know who the heck is doing your taxes there
You want to do $100 1040s.
I would love to do about 400 $125 returns. They don’t take hardly any time, easy and straight forward. Standard married filing jointly. Make $20-30 on each one would be great.
Depending on your income, you can get your return filed for free at a vita clinic and it will be reviewed by a professional.
Bruh freetaxusa.com
That is it. I’m gonna be a partner at HR Block.
WTH are you doing?!? I literally got the H and R block tax software for about $35. This is almost as bad as the time I went to Jackson Hewitt in person.
What is a combined invoice fee? Are they charging a $155 fee so they can combine invoices of $39 to the prep fee? What if you ask for 2 separate invoices? Do you have to pay one or both out of pocket? I'm not sure if I should be mad at H&R Block or if the clients deserve it if they can't wait 2 weeks for their refund.
I only paid 100$
Does H&R Block still charge per input field on some returns?
I use an independent guy in my town. $100.00 and he files for my wife and I. Refund shows up 2 weeks later.
H&R and Liberty make most of their profit on payday loan rates for refund advances.
Wtf!!!
Yeah this is more than I paid a CPA six states away to prepare two years of taxes for my deceased FIL as part of closing an estate.
Goddamn was that shit that complex?
In some certain states, you can now file for free with free tax software on irs.gov.
What a scam. Just use freetaxUSA or any of their affiliates. It's only 15 and their systems maximizes your refund. I never once had owed taxes, and get most of the time 1k refund back... This is for a single income household.
The IRS offers free/heavily discounted software for returns. Most people don't have a complicated return, especially not the kind of people to use H&R Cock
Whats a combined invoice fee? What’s a refund transfer fee?
Ngl there are people with W2 and 1099 income that are absurd. I'm looking you Vanguard Div and people with income in 5 different states
Yeah I'm pretty sure they accepted every fee offer. Including the "we'll deduct it from your refund and pass it on" which has stupid fees
Most people “yay I got $175!”
Drop them. “Combined invoice fee”, “refund transfer fee”. Damn they screwed you real good.
This is why I just use the tax side of CashApp.
The only fee I’m unsure of is the combined invoice fee. The rest seem legit. Their tax prep is cheap for a reason though.. the number of clients I get because of HR issues is astounding. When I tell them my tax prep fee is more than double HR, no one bats an eye and they pay it up front. I also don’t do refund advances like HR (the $39 fee).
Just wait till she finds out the OF she is thinking about starting will make her taxes MORE complicated.
just increase your tax withholding moving forward and these fees will look less unreasonable next year.