I filed my taxes the first week of February. I usually get my refund a few weeks later. Then I found out that, since I filed an education credit form, my return wouldn’t be processed until February 15th (something to do with the fiscal cliff…I don’t really care what).
I’ve been checking my refund status on the IRS website called “Where’s my refund?”. Ever since February 15th it has told me my tax return was being processed, and that I should receive my return “21 days from the date I filed.” Calculating from February 15th, my revised date of “here’s my money” was March 8th.
March 8th came and went. No money. March 9th came and went. No money. Here we are on March 11th. Guess what? No money.
Tonight I got home from work and called H&R Block, whose software I used to e-file my return. I found out that evidently H&R Block’s tax return software had a glitch that caused the IRS to reject the returns that had education credits (like mine). The person I spoke with at H&R Block told me, “We are sorry for the inconvenience, but you don’t have to worry about it, because the problem has been resolved, and you should receive your refund within the next 45 days.”
WHAT????
I told him, “I understand your program had a glitch.I understand that you fixed the problem with the IRS so that I don’t have to do anything but wait. I understand that you are sorry for the problem. What I don’t understand is what are you going to do about it?”
He escalated the call to a supervisor who told me that their “advance on your tax refund” promotion is over, so that isn’t an option. He told me that he would “escalate my call” and I should get an answer within the next 72 hours. Any guesses on what that answer will be?
I went to H&R Block’s Facebook page, and found out that there are thousands of their customers affected by this.
I’m angry. I understand that these things happen sometimes, but they need to make it right. I filed my return on February 6th. Because of the idiots in Washington DC, my return wasn’t processed until Feb 15th. And now, because of H&R Block I won’t get my money back until April. I have bills to pay, including my mortgage. They are sorry for the inconvenience, but they aren’t doing anything to prove they are sorry.
I have been a loyal H&R Block customer for over 18 years. If you want to keep me, H&R Block, you need to step up and advance at least some of our money to us. NOW.
Words of Truth 
I used to use Turbo-Tax. I figured any program named after a Secretary of the US Treasury would have to be good! ;-D
I use H&R Blockhead now, but don’t trust it too far. I took their “tax preparer class” one year just for fun. I got into disagreements with the instructor a few times (who’d “been doing this for 14 years and never took an accounting class”. I told her “Yes, and it shows.”) One time she said “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I asked her if she’d like to see the code and regs on the issue, and she said “Yes!” So the next class period I brought her copies of the relevant sections of both and she got all mad. I had to change to the other class with a different instructor. (She was giving WRONG/BAD advice to her students.);-D
My favorite tax prep program of all time was one that you just put the numbers where they belonged and it automatically sent them to the other places that those amounts belonged – ie it automatically added up the lines for you – but you had to know where everything went first and what you could do. It went out of business – probably because more and more people don’t really know what they’re doing – even accountants and tax pros and CPAs.
I received my “within 72 hours reply” tonight, and it was what I thought it would be. They basically said, “we’ve been talking with the IRS and we have it all fixed. You should get your money much sooner than the 6-8 weeks that they are telling people.
I’m currently up in the air about what I’m going to do next year. On the one hand, I’m familiar with H&R Block and I like everything about their product (except for the “make you wait two months longer for your money than anybody else” part). OTOH, I think the only other software to use would be TurboTax, and I think they are just as liable to mess up as H&R Block. I dunno.