PROS:
- easy to use
- simple, clean design
- meets all your tax needs
- see and edit actual tax forms if needed
- other perks like in-person representation in the unlikely event of an audit
- tax calculators
- lots of helpful explanations and walkthroughs
CONS:
- “online help with a real tax expert” wait times are insane and their help is not helpful
- customer help phone is also useless
- Didn’t catch errors on every “check” but did eventually at the end
OVERALL: overall this is a fine software that will help you manage and file your taxes and for those who take taxes more seriously or have an above average complicated tax situation, this software will help you get everything straight and organized. If you’re someone who wants or needs a helping hand along the way from an expert, pay a little more and go get a “tax person” to do it for you.
FULL REVIEW:
I decided to try H&R Block software this year after switching from their online tax prep option which was also after switching from Turbo Tax for the past years before that. I really think both are fine options and for most people they’re about the same product. It is a similar battle to Coke or Pepsi, apple or android; they’re both fine products with minor differences.
I went with the H&R Block Premium software because, well it was the biggest and covered the most things right? Looking back I probably didn’t need EVERYTHING it offered but I like to have more than I need. And from what I could tell, this was the only one that covered schedule C (1099 forms i.e. personal business income, etc) which is usually a “pay more” option for the online tools. So I figured if I have to pay around 30 bucks when I file with the “free” online tools, I might as well get the software and see how it differs. I’m assuming a lot of people reading this are probably coming from the free online as well so I’ll try to compare those when I can.
On that note, I noticed right away the software is definitely not as “flashy” as the online free prep (let’s call it “free option” from now on). The free option is very bubbly and modern web design for sure, whereas the software is more, shall we say, classical computer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike that and being a 90s kid, I actually prefer the more professional looking form than the rounded edge, bubbly we seem to be loving lately. Taxes aren’t sexy, that’s ok. So the software has an older, more simple look; there’s no cartoon graphics or “real world” question and answers, but there are plenty of help buttons and clean, precise examples when needed. They assume at this point you understand what you’re doing and created more of a “check-box and go” style vs “did you buy a car this year? Yes? Let’s work on that now” that you see often in the free option.
So esthetics aside, how did I like the software? Well, I needed to file my taxes, and after using this software, I successfully filed my taxes. So in that aspect, it did what it said it would do and I was able to do it rather easily. I think for most people this will do what you want or more and help you make sure you filed correctly and help you along the way.
The issue will be for people who aren’t sure and need help. See, the software does include “free chat assistance” but it starts out with a robot who you have to correctly get the questions wrong with so they connect you to a person. For me, the bot said they would connect me and we waited over an hour before ignoring the chat window completely. Later we came back and saw someone had eventually entered the chat but didn’t stay around long enough for us to notice and then they left the chat. There was no timestamp to tell me when or how long this took place, but it was still obviously not a great showing of the “free helpful chat” service offered.
Since we couldn’t get through on the chat right away, we called the 800 help number shortly after trying the chat. It’s a good thing we called right at the beginning of our prep because we were on hold for over 80 minutes and had actually skipped the area we had a question on and proceeded to finish filling out everything else before we got off hold. I thought this was a good thing though because we now had more than 1 question for the tax expert to help us with. The problem was, after over an hour of holding, I finally got my tax expert (who sounded oddly similar to the late night customer support for my ISP) and I explained my question about the new 1099 NEC forms and mentioned that I had a few other questions to go over as well. I then waited for a response and waited long enough that I eventually said, “hello? Are you still there” and they answered, “yes, I’m just looking over this.” I don’t know what “this” was but she later asked what software I was using, I mentioned it was the Premium software and not the free option and she said, “oh ok, hang on, let me see if I can find your answer” and then we sat for about 10 minutes in silence while she did...well, I just don’t know what she did but eventually I couldn’t take the awkward silence and I started trying to explain my problem more because I was pretty sure at this point she was just using a web search and/or H&R Block help like I tried for over an hour while I waited. Either way, she responded with something like “yes, I see, I’m just trying to find ...the….” and literally trails off as she goes back to reading whatever she is reading. We then sat in silence for a few more minutes before eventually the call was simply dropped. This is just purely unacceptable and about 90% of the reason my rating is lower than 5. Everyone knows taxes are confusing, and if you get confused you want help. These tax software companies promise fast and easy help, but reality is I have never once had a good experience with tax software help. Not from any of the big name companies. So on the one hand, this isn’t a huge knock to H&R Block because it’s a common problem everywhere, but it is still a problem and one that makes a frustrating situation even more frustrating.
Ignoring the lack of help feature, the only other issue I had with using the software was at the end when they did my “final check” they cleared my federal return with no errors and we went on to state. After we finished our state it did another “final check” over both fed and state and said it’s all clear. Apparently there was a 3rd check right before filing because we got an error saying we never put the state in the address line from a W2. How that was missed in the first 2 checks I don’t know, but I’m glad it was caught eventually, just gave us that “is this actually working?” feeling. Not the confidence I was hoping but at least I have representation if I get audited.
Now, if you don’t think you’ll need to actually talk to a person for help, or use the chat, you really shouldn’t have any issues with this software. It helps walk you through filing pretty easy and lets you work through just about any form you need and even has an option to look at the actual forms you’re sending if you want to see how it all looks. You can save your work and come back and you can file up to 5 times with one activation code so that’s helpful if you have to do a fixed return or something.
Overall it is a good tax filing software and I prefer it to turbotax options but it still has a few issues, even though those come with any company you choose. If you can’t work in a more simplistic design this might not be for you, but otherwise I think it’s a good choice for anyone with a small business or slightly more complicated than average tax needs.
