New Rant(s)

O.K. I'm still stewing over the Paypal issue. However, time moves on and I don't feel as inclined to vent. I'm glad some authors have decided to pursue the avenue of Censorship and even hire counsel to represent them. I still don't understand why the main stream media has not gotten into the act yet. Waiting for BBC or MSNBC or for that matter MSN to run some print articles about it. (Yes, I'm a news junkie and my RSS feed has a plethora of news on it)

My NEW rant is actually a long request for people to boycot H&R Block. My husband and I had one of the worst experiences ever at H&R Block the other night. Our saga starts with being insulted by the tax preparer. She insulted my organizational skills. I have always kept every receipt for an entire year. Then after taxes I throw out what the preparer deems unuseful. (Sorry environment, I actually burn it) I meticulously organize it so that when I'm asked questions by the preparer, I can find everything within a few seconds. This has helped immensly in the past, especially, if we itemize. She spent less than 1/2 an hour with us. She treated me like I was an idiot, and I guess I am for subjecting myself to H&R Block in the first place. She then decided she needed to spend some time looking over our information and would call me to set up a time to sign. I get this call the NEXT day. Your taxes are done, that will be 250$. My husband and I were like WTF. So we went back to the office to pick them up. Then the Preparer on duty tells me. We can not give you an itemized list of your bill. WTF you charged me $250 I'd like to know why. So here is the List H&R Block refused to give me untill I became an unruly client.

$67 base federal form
$21 W2 Calculation of wages
$7 Educator expense Deduction
$12 Interest and Dividends Review
$53 SCH C Profit and Loss of Bus.
$27 8880 Credit for Retirement Cont
$5 Married Filing Joint
$44 PA 40 Tax Return
$5 PA Sch C
$14 PA Sch UE Bus/Ed/Depr
= a Load of Bull SHit

I can understand some of the expenses, but she didn't calculate anything. The computer did. She even complained because I work so many jobs, when all she had to do was type in the amounts my employers provided. I have a business, but I have a computer program that figures everything out before hand all she had to do was again enter the figures. My husband said that he will definitely do them next year. At the rate we were charged he could work 12 hours just on our taxes and we would save money.
So the moral of this story do your taxes yourself. Even if H&R block has a pretty sign and good advertising they are still a business in the habit of thinking they can screw with the little people. And we as Americans wonder why we have so many businesses in trouble. Chalk another one up to corporate greed. If they had charged me half of that amount I probably wouldn't have batted an eye. Sometimes greed does not pay.

I applogize to any one who may work for H&R Block. Maybe all offices are NOT the same. My experience may be a fluke. However, I really don't think so.