H&R Block online tax filing -- worth it?
Mar 11 '00 (Updated Mar 13 '00)
I was not looking forward to doing taxes this year because my wife and I are finally making a lot of money, trading stocks, own a house and are making significant charitable contributions. I imagined a complete headache and inky fingers sifting through dozens of forms and schedules. So, when I saw a banner ad announcing H&R Block's $9.95 e-filing, I was intrigued.
This morning I gathered all of my paperwork and receipts and logged onto hrblock.com. I quickly registered and started preparing my tax returns online! What a thrill!
Format
You can choose to fill out online forms that mirror the hard copy forms you receive in the mail, or you can take a leisurely interview process. I went with the interview process because it claimed it would ask you easy questions about easy to find information on W-2s and 1099s. So, in a linear, narrative format, they began asking me these easy questions. I was thoroughly impressed with this format. They captured all the information they needed, then funneled it to the correct forms! They captured capital gains info, itemized deductions, mortgage interest, real estate taxes, etc. and all I had to know was how to type the information into the text box -- not where it ultimately needed to end up.
One of the coolest features was that there was a constant note about how much you owed or how much of a refund you were getting. It was fun to see how each additional piece of information affected that total.
Look and Feel
I'm impressed with the GUI on the site. Simple, intuitive and pleasing. What I liked best was the hyperlinked words that immediately pulled up definitions. I mean, how many of you actually know what "earned income credit" means? And, there are always 2 or 3 help topics off to the right of the interview page with hints on how to answer, or suggestions on what deductions might be applicable in that particular section. It certainly jogged my memory more than once. I was working from home on this on a 56K modem and the pages took quite a bit of time to download, but nothing excruciating.
Navigation
There are multiple ways to input data, or review your work. You can view via forms, or back your way through the interview questions, or hit the "navigate" tab where you can view all of the topics in one view that the interview steps you through and you can jump to any one at once. I used the forms to alter some of the data, but relied on the interview procedure to input the bulk of my information. HRBlock has a particularly savvy format for capturing capital gains information. It asks for description of purchase, when you bought/when you sold, purchase price, then sell price. It calculates whether that was a loss or gain, and what tax rate to apply to it based on the time you held that stock.
Bugs?
I'm pleased to say I lost no work at all, even when the system hung up on me and forced me out. As soon as you click the "next" tab to move to any other topic or question, the programs saves all of your work. HOWEVER, I spent 45 minutes trying to correct some errors when it should have taken 45 seconds. The program spits out mistakes on your form and gives you "click & edit" buttons to correct the data. It turns out the program lost my wife's and my names for our respective W-2s. The program wouldn't let me "click & edit," so I had to hack my way back through the forms and override several commands. It took some pretty complicated hunting and trial & errors before the program accepted our names back. It was thoroughly frustrating and is the reason I'm giving this service 4 stars instead of 5.
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The program is priced right at $9.95 -- you can even deduct this fee next year! I spent about 5 hours on the site working, and another 45 minutes debugging. With a faster connection, I could have finished in 3.5 hours probably, but the pace didn't bother me because I was being very methodical. The result of my day doing taxes? A VERY healthy return, that will come to us very quickly because we e-filed!
I recommend you check out www.hrblock.com and see if you like the program. I did! And, you don't need to provide them with payment until you get to the very end and send the forms to the IRS.
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