> I used H&R block one year, and really didn't think they knew any more about tax filing than I did. They got confused at all the same line items I did.
I mean... H&R Block is in some ways the Firestone of accounting. Sometimes there's a diamond in the rough of their 'regular' workers [0] but you never know what you're gonna get unless you happen to wind up in the right circumstances where you can build trust with one of their people that happens to stick [1]
[0] - Had a friend who could get one of H&R Block's folks to do the whole deed for 'non complicated'[2] starting with a pile of receipts/medical bills/etc and 90$ for people they liked, and yes they'd do their proper professional duty in the process. Frankly given the time investment that's a steal.
[1] - In my case, it was a guy at a local shop who had his WRX parked outside every time that was some level of manager. Always happy to give proper treatment, never afraid to say 'take it to the dealer' (i.e. more qualified people) if it was out of their comfort zone. Compare and contrast to a different shop, where after some 'changes' managed to mess up an oil change, and the 'fix' for the bad oil change... [3]
[2] - I want to be clear that non-complicated is not the trivial 'oh sure okay' here, they may or may not have had a hand in pointing out said friend's parent was doing some... 'minor some student loan fraud'. But if you had additional properties or other weird situations... If I remember they had their own sort of menu and everything. Very smartly done.
[3] - I had to re-replace a <6 month old timing belt in the process, but frankly the engine needs a rebuild now, it lost 2-5MPG from that one incident.