H&R Block Software Glitch To Delay 600,000 U.S. Tax Refunds

mrquagmire sends this quote from a Reuters report: "Tax refunds for about 600,000 taxpayers claiming an education credit will be delayed, the Internal Revenue Service said on Wednesday, citing a software glitch at some tax-preparation companies, including industry leader H&R Block Inc. Refunds may be delayed four to six weeks from mid-February, likely not showing up until late March, the IRS said. ... On Tuesday, a Wal-Mart Stores Inc executive said shoppers had cashed about $2.7 billion in tax refund checks at its U.S. stores so far this year. At this point last year, that amount was about $4 billion. The IRS delayed the start of the tax filing season by eight days, to January 30, due to the enactment of tax law changes made to resolve the "fiscal cliff."

Comments

a software glitch, ha?

[roman_mir]

A software glitch?

I have a feeling that this software glitch is not really a bug, it's just when this function executed:

getTotalAvailableFederalBalance()

it returned 0, and somewhere along the line it triggered a condition known as: TreasuryIsBareException

Not surprising according to what they told me

[metalheadsunite]

I filed in late January and they told me at that time that the IRS wasn't accepting education credit submissions until late February and would delay refunds for about 2 months. Interesting that they now come out and say it was a software glitch.

Re:Damn you Walmart!

[DougOtto]

The people that cash checks at Walmart, typically, have no bank. The businesses that Walmart is hurting with this service are the sleazeball check cashing folks. I'm not quite sure which way to feel about that.

Easily Handled

[Frankie70]

try
{
        avail = getTotalAvailableFederalBalance();
}
catch(TreasuryIsBareException e)
{
        printMoreMoney();
}