KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- An error in an electronic tax-filing program that misread intervals of $1,000 as intervals of $1 has left some H&R Block customers owing money to the Internal Revenue Service.
H&R Block has told about 3,000 of its income tax customers that because of the error, they didn't pay enough money to the IRS and they will have to send a check, a company spokesman said Saturday.The problem affects only customers who owed more than $1,000, filed returns electronically on the company's Tax Cut software or online and had authorized the IRS to take the payments directly out of their bank accounts.
The program misread the comma in amounts of $1,000 or more owed as the end of the line, meaning $1,000 was read as $1.
Affected taxpayers were notified by overnight letter and e-mail Friday that they would have to use regular mail to send their payments to the IRS, said Neil Getzlow, a spokesman for the Kansas City-based company. He said the software problem had been corrected.
"We are working with the IRS to ensure that they will not face any penalties," Getzlow said. "In the unlikely event that happens, H&R Block will take care of it."
The IRS said affected taxpayers should include the letter from Block when mailing their payments.
About 18 million people use the company or its software to prepare their tax returns.