{"id":674286,"date":"2010-02-24T10:33:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T15:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/hr-block-shares-plunge-18-as-unemployment-hits-tax-prep-business-2010-2"},"modified":"2026-10-04T10:55:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T14:55:46","slug":"hr-block-shares-plunge-18-as-unemployment-hits-tax-prep-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/674286","title":{"rendered":"H&amp;R Block Shares Plunge 18% As Unemployment Hits Tax Prep Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shares of tax preparer H&amp;R Block (HRB) fell yesterday as it weathered weak Q4 earnings and a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/hr-blocks-stock-plummets-on-ratings-downgrade-2010-2\">downgrade from Oppenheimer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to today and H&amp;R Block is really getting creamed. Shares are down 18% or $3.50 to $16.23 a share.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=aHv9PdGicEmY&amp;pos=7\">Bloomberg<\/a>: Same-office tax returns prepared in retail operations fell 5.6 percent through Feb. 15 compared with the same period a year earlier, the Kansas City, Missouri-based company said today in a statement. Total tax returns prepared declined 6.3 percent. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We believe industry filings are down significantly due to the recession and sustained, high levels of unemployment,&rdquo; Chief Executive Officer Russ Smyth said in the statement. &ldquo;The weak economic conditions have also contributed to a greater shift to do-it-yourself tax preparation methods.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to the TurboTax generation, folks.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.businessinsider.com\/image\/4b8545ce000000000007c13a\/hrb-feb24.jpg?w=780\" border=\"0\" alt=\"HRB Feb24\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/hr-block-shares-plunge-18-as-unemployment-hits-tax-prep-business-2010-2#comments\">Join the conversation about this story &#187;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>See Also:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/lets-get-over-the-idea-that-high-income-tax-rates-reduce-gdp-2010-2\">Sorry Republicans, Higher Taxes Will NOT Kill The Economy<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/new-york-unemployment-website-crashes-under-the-weight-of-too-many-claimants-2010-2\">New York Unemployment Website Crashes Under The Weight Of Too Many Claimants<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/uk-unemployment-unexpectedly-surges-2010-2\">UK Unemployment Unexpectedly Surges<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheMoneyGame\/~4\/Cdq_F44-WdE\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shares of tax preparer H&amp;R Block (HRB) fell yesterday as it weathered weak Q4 earnings and a downgrade from Oppenheimer. Fast forward to today and H&amp;R Block is really getting creamed. Shares are down 18% or $3.50 to $16.23 a share. Bloomberg: Same-office tax returns prepared in retail operations fell 5.6 percent through Feb. 15 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2PpA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":775702,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674286\/revisions\/775702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}