H&R Block reports fees up 9% in 2008 tax season

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A late-season rush of tax filers helped H&R Block Inc. to its strongest tax season since 1999, the nation's largest tax preparer said Monday.

H&R Block reported tax preparation revenue rose 9 percent between November and April 17 to $2.76 billion, up from $2.54 billion in the 2007 tax season.

The number of clients coming into H&R Block's network of retail offices during the final two weeks of the season rose 4.7 percent, generating a 10.6 percent surge in revenues.

"H&R Block had a great tax season this year," Chairman Richard Breeden said in a release.

Overall, the Kansas City-based company said the number of clients for its core tax business this year rose 2.2 percent, which is adjusted to remove people who were filing tax forms only to receive rebate checks from the government or who applied for a tax refund loan but didn't have H&R Block prepare their taxes.

Anyone seeking a rebate check as part of an economic stimulus package had to file a return, so some lower-income people who generally would not file returns did so this year.

The company said that without adjusting for those factors, the total number of retail tax filers increased 4.1 percent.

Customers who do their taxes over the Internet or with H&R Block's TaxCut software declined by 2 percent, which was actually an improvement from earlier in the year, the company said.

The average retail fee grew 4.7 percent to $172.32. The company said the increase would have been 6.2 percent without the one-time filers.

H&R Block shares, which have traded in a 52-week range of $16.89 to $24.02, gained 44 cents to $24.01 in trading Monday.