H&R Block

Yeesh, some people hate this place, huh. I can only speak for myself but I’ve had a pretty good experience here the last couple years. My taxes took a complicated turn due to a death, a coop sale, etc… stuff I just didn’t want to tackle on my own. I file 2 different returns yearly & I work with a different person for each; they are both reliable & knowledgeable. My main person is personable & always remembers me, we chat about our families, etc. And she points things out about my taxes I would’ve never caught on my own, maximizing my returns. The other person is not as social with me but he gets the job done. I DO have to add that I recommend going as early in the year as you can… this year I went early but we were waiting for a couple of additional outside docs prior to filing & I let time go until close to the deadline to chase that & then chase them. And yes, response time isn’t as prompt as you’d want it to be in those last several days because they are dealing with everyone else who waited until the last several days. I did end up in their offices that last day, w/​a bunch of other not-​thrilled looking people. My people did a great job once I saw them though. But yeah, not going to do that ever again! (I almost want to say this place is terrible so that the wait times are at a minimum but that’s not giving credit where due. Plus I want to keep this place around.)

HUGE MISTAKE — Liz Connolly is an A*$hole
My 2014 taxes were a little more complicated than past years so I decided to cough up the cash and pay for a professional to do them instead of doing them online this year. I wish the other reviews had been here before I went to do my taxes because I, too, am a victim of Elizabeth Connolly. Not only was she incredibly rude and condescending, she messed up my taxes and finally missed a deduction that I TOLD HER ABOUT. I had done all of the math and preparation so I was expecting some guidance on whether I had done this correctly and about other deductions I might be eligible for. Instead, she just put the #s into the form, didn’t give me any advice and actually talked over me when I tried to ask questions. She missed my biggest deduction — $ 13,000! — because she was ignoring me AND the paperwork I’d prepared beforehand. Thankfully I caught that error (after she tried to tell me I owed $ 15,000) but then i noticed she didn’t entered a $ 1500 deduction that I had also told her about.
The whole point of paying someone was that they would give me some advice and that was the opposite of what happened. I am mad at myself for paying the $ after she was so rude but at the time I thought, «who cares, I just want my taxes done.» Huge mistake. I ended up having to amend my taxes after I caught the $ 1500 error (I went to a different location obviously) but they’re still wrong. I’m now working on a second amendment.

Not sure what kind of crack I was smoking when I thought I would try to do my taxes here. I sent everything to the accountant (several pages of paperwork) thinking she would process everything so I would just have to come in and sign. In other words, DO HER JOB. I emailed Liz a few times to find out how much money I would owe or be refunded but no answer. I finally went in for my appt, waited 30 minutes, only to find out that she had not done anything. She couldn’t find my paperwork, and she had no idea what was going on. When I pointed out that I had emailed everything in an Excel spreadsheet she tried finding in her email only to find herself perplexed because she couldn’t open the doc. How the hell are you an accountant without Excel? I was so irritated I left deciding to go to another accountant.

whatta joke, and not the haha kind — the kind that robs you blind and doesn’t even end up being funny at all. I met with Elizabeth Connelly who supposedly has decades of experience. the first thing I told her when I sat down was that it was my first year filing alone and I wasn’t sure how or what or where to do my individual write offs.
long story short she judged me for where I live, told me I should move to save money (???) and was rude. she simply typed in my w2 info. she didn’t ask me ANY questions that are on the itemized portion and considering I had no idea what I was doing — which is by the way WHY I sought professional help — I didn’t know what information to offer up.
the only thing she asked me was how much I spent on acting classes and then told me he standardized deduction would be my best option.
then she charged me $ 200. he real kicker is my boyfriend only got charged $ 80 but my student loan interest was another $ 120. if she was a decent person and knew that I needed to do the standard deduction, she should have just said that and saved the 15 minutes it took her to type in my info.
following this excruciating experience it dawned on me that she didn’t take into account my IRA, my move, my work expenses, and work research deductible.
this place should be wiped off the mat, false advertisement, bad attitudes (including the manager who I spoke to following this incident who told me all he could do was discount me next year. HA as if I’ll ever be back), and no returns because of the lack of knowledge on how to f$&@ing file taxes. it’s weird. I thought that’s the point???
AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!

Worst experience ever, total waste of time.
I walk in to H&R block having the expectation that this is a company that has professionals who will help get me the most money back on my tax return. I usually use a online tax refund service like turbo tax but was told to go to a proffesional to get more money back.
The first warning sign was the lack of staff in this office, there was one tax associate in the whole building. Elizabeth Connolly a professed tax expert of 26 years who lived and breathed taxes.
Let me tell you she doesn’t know the diffrence between her a$$hole and her mouth. She doesn’t give a flying fûck and you could tell when sitting accross from her. I was suprised of how little she knew of the exemptions NY offers.
She will not fight for you, she will only give you a dead look and ask for $ 80 to do something that you yourself can do from home.