Obamacare Just Made Filing Your Income Tax More Expensive...

On December 9, business reporter Mark Davis posted an article up on the website of the Kansas City Star headlined “About 25 percent of H&R Block customers will ‘confront’ the Affordable Care Act”; the next day it appeared in the wood pulp version of the newspaper. Davis reported on a meeting in New York where H&R Block, the world’s largest tax services provider, told investor’s “that it sees the potential for significant growth in business thanks to the health care reform commonly called Obamacare.”

 Inasmuch as Block bases “customer bills on the complexity of their returns, such as how many and which tax forms are involved,” does this mean that ObamaCare is going to make federal income taxes even more of a headache? For some taxpayers, the answer is yes (italics added):

There will be new tax forms to fill out, more documents to collect and more questions to answer, H&R Block chief financial officer Greg Macfarlane told investors.

“We will be charging for them this season,” Macfarlane said of the new tax forms required. “There is pricing opportunity for us here, for sure.” He did not divulge the amount of the fees to avoid tipping off competitors.

Block expects to gain customers from among taxpayers who currently do their taxes themselves […].

Macfarlane said current H&R Block customers and those who “sample” the company in the coming year will be more likely to remain customers because of Block’s skill in handling their first tax experience under the health care reform.

“And that situation will only get more complicated as the next few years unravel,” he said.

And who are these lucky people, some of whom have been able to prepare their income taxes themselves but must now pay a professional tax preparer? Well, some are the taxpayers who get tax credit subsidies. So if your income is so low that you need help from the feds to pay your ObamaCare health insurance premiums, you might have to start paying to...



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