As almost all of you may know, H&R Block likes to mention it’s “people” in it’s numerous ad campaigns.  However, you should be warned that these “people” may not be very qualified to prepare many tax returns.  In fact, many of the “people” may have never even seen a tax return in their lives before they took the H&R Block tax preparation course. 

Now, I have nothing against the people who take the course to benefit themselves and who are interested in getting a basic understanding of the tax system, however, unless you have a simple tax return which includes a basic 1040, the standard deduction and some interest you can be taking a large risk by allowing them to prepare your tax return.  In fact, the basic course is only 69 hours long, which is the equivalent of approzimately a single

semester’s time in one college level course. 

Further, I have come across an ad placed on CareerBuilder.com that H&R Block placed for tax preparers, ehich can be viewed here.  The ad states that it is looking for people who are interested in earning additional seasonal income to employ during the tax season, including students, retirees, and stay-at-home mothers.  I have personally be brought many returns that were prepared by H&R Block that contained over-sights, as well as errors that would have been caught by peoperly educated, experienced professionals.  Of course, even CPA’s do make mistakes, but the chances are far greater that an inexperienced person will file an incomplete or erroneous tax return.

 Quite simply, I am not saying that the people who are employed by H&R Block are incompetent, but that you may want to ask for qualifications and experience histories of any person you bring your tax return to.  This is perhaps one of the most important documents that you will need to prepare each year, so wouldn’t it make you rest easier knowing that a properly educated and trained professional is entrusted with it?

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.