H&R Block may have violated the privacy rights of its customers by allowing third party advertising companies, including Meta (Facebook) and Google to track their sensitive tax return information without authorization or consent. In November 2022, data privacy publication The Markup revealed that major tax filing services, including H&R Block, were quietly transmitting sensitive financial information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts, to Facebook and Google when its customers used its website to file their taxes online. A subsequent Congressional investigation alleged that the online tax preparation companies, including H&R Block, were “shockingly careless with their treatment of taxpayer data,” did not appear to obtain valid taxpayer consent to share the data, and sharing this data with Google and Meta was potentially illegal. If you used H&R Block’s online tax preparation software to file your 2021 tax return online in 2022, you may qualify for a claim under federal and state privacy laws of up to $10,000.

This is a case about privacy. We allege that when you used H&R Block’s online tax preparation software in 2022 to file your 2021 tax return, H&R Block shared your sensitive tax return information with third party advertising companies, including Google and Meta, without authorization. We are representing clients in individual arbitration claims against H&R Block for violating federal and state privacy laws, including ones that specifically protect the confidentiality of tax return information, as well as consumer protection laws.