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Review by H. Wang

January 10, 2020

I always buy H&R Block at the beginning of each year. As I found out H&R Block and Amazon always have a 50% discount at the beginning of each year for this software. For the past couple of years, I monitored this H&R Block SW price and I haven’t found better price than this 50% discount. Here are my purchase record for the past couple of years.

o 01/07/2012 Got H&R Block Premium, Amazon special deal: $29.99no 01/05/2013 Got H&R Block Premium, Amazon special deal: $26.99no 01/03/2014 Got H&R Block premium, Amazon special deal: $31.99no 01/02/2015 Got H&R Block premium, Amazon special deal: $31.99no 01/02/2016 Got H&R Block premium, Amazon special deal: $31.95nnI do my own tax return, mainly because I have complex tax situations…more than 7 schedule K-1 forms from various private placement investments (including 2 oil exploring investments with complex tax codes), more than 10 rental properties, and a sole proprietorship (for stock trading). First of all, not all the tax-filer have the related experience or knowledge to handle my tax return (especially, the complex tax codes from oil exploring investments). Or it will cost me a fortune for an experienced CPA to do my tax return.

I was using Turbo tax initially, but I didn’t find special advantage in Turbo Tax when comparing with H&R Block. So, I switched over to Tax Cut, and I have been using H&R Block for the past 8 years. It’s not only cheaper, but also capable of handling my tax return’s needs. It has an easy interview process to guide people to enter information. It allow me to fetch specific form to make manual modifications. I can do if-else analysis to assess different tax strategies with it. The cost of purchasing additional state tax packages is low (rental properties in various states that require me to file multiple state tax returns.).

To my experience, both Turbo Tax and H&R Block are not much difference in functions and capabilities. But I would recommend H&R Block for its value. (Don’t get me wrong…I am not saying Turbo Tax is bad. But it’s more expensive.)