STUMP » Articles » Obamacare Tax Watch: H&R Block Notes Shoe Yet To Drop » 9 March 2015, 12:46

What with Iran, hidden emails, and Supreme Court hearings, it’s been a little quiet on the Obamacare tax front lately.

H&R Block noticed that, too:

A second giant tax preparer, H&R Block Inc. (NYSE:HRB), has talked about seeing fewer consumers with Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) tax concerns in the past few weeks than it expected.

Individual income tax filings for 2014 are due April 15. As of the end of February, H&R Block U.S. tax season filing volume was down 4.2 percent from the volume number the company posted a year earlier.

Liberty Tax Inc. (Nasdaq:TAX) reported disappointing volume numbers in February.

…..

1. The number of filers is still lower than the company expected.

H&R Block is not giving any concrete figures, but executives said during a conference call with securities analysts that the number of clients affected directly by PPACA program, other than by a need to check the “insured” box on a Form 1040, has been lower than it expected.

William Cobb, the company’s president, said the company now believes that PPACA exchange delays in sending Form 1095-A coverage notices, PPACA exchange moves to correct erroneous Form 1095-A notices, publicity about the errors, and consumer confusion about the notices they have received may have led affected consumers to put off doing their taxes.

The result may be the consumers affected by PPACA problems will be coming in late in the tax season, Cobb said.

Go to the link for a couple more items, such as an unnamed competitor (TurboTax, perhaps?) who does not check for a required tax form before filing.

Should be interesting to see what happens with that one.

But if you recall from earlier posts, one of the reasons these companies are seeing fewer Obamacare returns is because people haven’t received their tax forms yet. Correct ones, at any rate.

A couple weeks ago, the IRS seems to have given a pass to those who relied on earlier, erroneous tax forms. But for the laggards?

Tax day is in about a month.

This is going to get real, real ugly.