A story about H&R Block:
I got on the ball early this year and got my tax return filed. It took awhile to get all of my appropriate forms together and reviewing my tax situation from the past year. I classified the situation as unusual for the simple fact that I had worked in two different states due to an internship. Now let me preface by saying H&R Block has been doing my taxes for 2 years and has done an excellent job thus far. But to be sure of myself, I looked at what my tax rates should be online and dug around.
Well during the filing (I sat in on it instead of dropping off paperwork), everything was going just fine, I was going to get a larger return than expected as well as being eligible for their refund advance loan. As she's wrapping everything up and handing it back to me, she mentions that I will owe my primary state $1,207 in state taxes. I wish I could have seen the look on my face in that moment. She avoided my eye contact and pled ignorance. She called someone over to look at the system again which showed everything was entered correctly and was corroborated by who I assume was her supervisor. I couldn't really understand what went wrong, but I was very close to accepting that fact that tax professionals know what they're doing.
That didn't sit well with me. I went back the next day and handed my info in to be looked at again. Today (4 weeks later), I get a call from the same rep saying there was a "glitch in the system" so I should expect some changes in my refund. Basically, she got my dates of residency for each state completely screwed up but wouldn't admit that. Only that there was a glitch. In any case, I went from owing one state $1,207 to receiving $583 from that state. On the other state, I went from receiving $700 to receiving $357. I could have just taken whatever I was told at face value, but when it's your money on the line, don't leave it to someone else to protect you.
TL;DR: trust but verify
Submitted March 10, 2017 at 03:16PM by DarthWade http://ift.tt/2m9bZKG
