Update on the tax situation

Well, I must say that I have resolved my tax problem but truly not to my satisfaction.

After my problem was escalated to level 2 support, I received an email the next day that stated I needed to answer yes to the question whether I had completed or was in the process of an adoption in 2007. The answer to that question is truly No. However, if I answered Yes, I was prompted to the fields needed to complete the taxes without an error. I had an ethical problem claiming yes to a question that should have been answered with a No. I did not have an adoption last year and I was not in the process of adopting last year. I felt like I was lying on my tax return which we all know is punishable up to and including jail time.

Once I completed my taxes I proceeded on to the E-Filing section of the software. All I can say is it is a good thing I read the small print. Here is what I found out when I got to the small print.
1. E-Filing is free for your federal taxes HOWEVER, in order to get your refund automatically deposited into you checking account H&R Block requires you to pay their bank a $29.95 fee. This fee is to establish a temporary account in this "partner bank". My question is what is the purpose of this temporary account? Most people don't question it at all and just pay the fee. Wait til you hear what this account is for in point 2.
2. You agree to sign your refund check over to H&R Block for the automatic deposit into your personal checking account. What really happens is that H&R Block receives your refund check along with hundreds of thousands of other peoples refund checks. If you know how interest is paid to banks you know that it is paid daily not monthly like it is paid to you and I on our personal accounts. So H&R Block and it's partner bank get custody of YOUR refund check. They deposit it into this temporary account and they earn the interest on your money for anywhere from 3 days to more than a week. I am sure they do their darnedest to keep it over a weekend or two. I have seen some posts from people claiming they have waited upwards of 19 days to get their refund into their personal checking accounts. Whether those are true or not I do not know. Bottom line you are paying them to make money for them with your money!
3. Since H&R Block has custody of your money, they also tell you that they have what they call "Family of Services partners". If you are in arrears in payments to any of these partners, your refund will be taken and used to pay these partners off first. So now your refund check is being spent by them and not you in the manner they see fit rather than in the manner you see fit or perhaps have promised to other creditors. I suppose H&R Block is making money off of these family of service partners as well. While I don't think being in arrears in payments to creditors is a good thing, sometimes people run into hard times. With the economy the way it is and gas prices what they are, it's easy to see how it could happen.
4. They tell you they share your personal information with their family of services partners...translated to spam, unwanted email and telephone solicitations from companies you do not want to hear from. I tried to find a listing of H&R Blocks "family of service providers" but could not find it on the web site. I spoke with a coworker about what I found in the small print. He used Taxcut this year. He too is waiting for his return to hit his checking account. He said it is taking longer this year for his fereal return. He stated he got his state return last Saturday but the Federal return is still not in his account. I suggested he check the IRS website to find out when the check was cut and when it actually hits his account. Once he learned what the small print stated he went back to try to find the small print. It is now where to be found.

Bottom line, I do not want to pay a company fees to set up a temporary account allowing them to make money using my money. People need to read the small print on these things. I cancelled out of E-Filing and opted to print my taxes forms and submit via the US mail. I have an ethical problem with a company that uses such practices. This is deception through and through.

Since I found this small print so alarming I checked www.ripoffreport.com and found A LOT of complaints about H&R Block. Many are from people who applied for the Emerald Card which I guess is a loan by one of these "partner banks" against the citizens refund check. However, these people are being charged huge fees for this service and not being told they may not qualify. I suppose its the poor folks who are in arrears and need all the money they are entitled to to pay off their debts but H&R Block hijacks their refund to pay off their "family of service partners" first, and charging huge service fees for services they do not qualify for instead of giving the money to the tax payer as expected. To me, that is just not fair business practices and it takes advantage of those who need their money returned in a timely manner.

In all fairness, I did get a comment on the "I need to vent!" post from some one at H&R Block stating the following: "...I'm a Sr. Product Manager with H&R Block TaxCut. I'm very sorry to hear that you had a frustrating experience both completing your return as well as talking to our customer support center. It's never our intention to have customers jump through hoops the way that you obviously had to!I realize that a few days have passed since you worked on your return, but I wanted to make sure that you were eventually able to resolve your issue and file your return. If not, please feel free to contact me directly at persons_name@hrblock.com and I will assist you in resolving your problem.Again, I apologize for the inferior experience that you had and please don't hesitate to contact me.

I do appreciate that offer but I don't think this person is able to fix what is wrong with H&R Block. Taking advantage of the small print is just not right. Delaying refunds to people who are entitled to fast refunds should not have their refund delayed even a few days to allow H&R Block to earn even more money on it. Hijacking peoples refund checks to pay companies that pay them to be in their family of service providers is not right. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't know if the folks that work for H&R Block really know what that fine print states. I like to think they don't. How else could you justify working for a company that takes such blatant advantage of people.

After all of this I am going to say it again. Let's give up the IRS and annual income taxes and go with a straight flat tax. We would pay taxes on the money we spend. All of the luxury items purchased by the wealthy and illegals would be collected in sales tax. The drug dealers and other people who do not pay income taxes would have to pay taxes on their purchases. In the end it would save us all a lot of headaches and hassle each spring. The IRS would be defunct, companies like H&R Block would be defunct, and we would all be happier in the end. There would be fewer people in prison for tax evasion which saves all tax payers a lot of money.

In the words of Forest Gump..."That's all I have to say about that."