If you filed your taxes with H&R Block and got held up by a delay, you may be getting a $25 payment in the mail soon.
The tax preparation firm said Wednesday it is sending $25 gift cards to customers who filed their taxes in company-owned H&R Block (HRB) locations and were impacted by a processing delay of returns claiming education credits.
H&R Block said changes in the way the IRS processes Form 8863, which is used to claim education credits, led to the delays. In March, the IRS said that more than 600,000 education credit returns had been improperly filed by tax software providers, including H&R Block.
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As a result, those refunds were expected to be delayed for up to six weeks. But H&R Block said Wednesday that most people ended up receiving their refunds much sooner, and more than 90% of its customers impacted by the delay have now received their refunds or have been notified that a refund is on its way.
The firm wouldn't say how many customers experienced delays or how many will receive the $25 payments, which are being loaded onto H&R Block's prepaid Emerald Cards. But qualifying customers should receive them in the mail soon.
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And H&R Block is hoping the delays this tax season won't scare off customers.
"The problem was a system disconnect in processing the form that unfortunately further delayed the return. This delay was not caused by something the tax professional did -- or did not do," H&R Block said in a statement.
