Disclosure: This is a sponsored post by H&R Block, meaning we were compensated and/or given a product or service free of charge in exchange for our honest review and documentation of our experience.
Every year when spring rolls around we have mixed emotions.
On one hand, it means prime RVing, camping, and outdoor adventure season is around the corner.
But on the other hand, we start feeling a bit anxious about April 15th…Tax Day. We know it’s inevitably coming every single year, but no matter what, we never quite feel prepared. How much are we going to owe? Are we really capable of doing it ourselves? Do we even have a choice because we don’t even have a “tax person”?
The same questions and uncertainties. Year after year. Which, of course, leads us to wait until the very last minute. Usually, the VERY LAST minute.
The Problem
Let me paint this picture even clearer for you.
Our 2018 tax season looked a bit like this: We were in Big Bend National Park. It’s the ultimate destination for unplugging because there is zero cell phone service inside the park. While we unplugged from work and had the best week ever adventuring, we still had our taxes hanging over our heads.
Then came 2019: we were in Washington D.C. for the cherry blossom festival…a bucket list experience! Once again, our taxes were like a dark cloud following us around the entire trip.
Okay, you might be wondering why we don’t just hand our taxes over to a professional to take care of. Unless you’re a full-time traveler yourself, then you might understand the struggle.
With springtime being prime travel season, we’re rarely in our home state of Colorado. To make things more complicated, the two years that we were full-time RVing, we were actually Texas residents. Since we didn’t own property in Colorado, and our home was on wheels, we chose Texas as our domicile state. So finding a tax professional to work with isn’t a realistic solution for us.
In addition to not having the ability to go into a tax office in our state (and frankly, not wanting to because we have about a million other things we’d prefer to do during our travels, like everyone else), we’ve often felt intimidated in doing so.
Confession: it’s been a challenge for us to stay organized when it comes to our business finances. In the past, we’d rather fumble through our minimal records then embarrassingly hand them over to someone else.
And lastly, it’s no secret that we’re frugal. We prioritize travel over anything else and we’ll cut back on and sacrifice just about everything in order to enjoy our adventures. Paying a tax professional when we could DIY seemed like a waste.
Until now…
We’ve learned that time IS money. And our peace of mind is worth A LOT to us. Especially during this latest detour we’ve embarked on…becoming parents through adoption! However, affordability and expertise is still a big priority to us, too.
The Product/Service – H&R Block Tax Pro Go
We partnered with H&R Block this year to try out their new program called Tax Pro Go. They specifically reached out to us because of our unique on-the-go lifestyle, which is a perfect fit for this new product/service.
H&R Block describes their new Tax Pro Go as “the easiest way for consumers to have an expert prepare their taxes without stepping foot in an office“. That definitely caught our attention!
Tax Pro Go is a virtual tax prep solution is an impactful innovation in tax prep. It’s H&R Blocks way of serving all types of clients – even those on-the-go, like us! Their goal is to save people with a busy lifestyle valuable time (who doesn’t have a busy lifestyle these days?).
The Features & Benefits
With Tax Pro Go, your taxes can be done while you practice social distancing or spend more time doing the things you’d rather be doing, whether it’s traveling, spending time with your family, or binge watching your favorite Netflix show.
In other words, from the comfort of your RV or couch, you can send your documents from a
mobile phone to one of H&R Block’s tax pros who will handle the rest. In fact, filling your taxes with Tax Pro Go is so simple, it’s just three easy steps:
- Sign up and lock in your price.
- Upload your documents. Then, you’ll be virtually connected to one of H&R Block state-certified, experienced tax pros. You’ll be matched with a pro that is trained to handle your specific filing needs. You can communicate and collaborate with your tax pro at any point throughout the process through secure messaging or a phone appointment. The turnaround time is approximately five days, and while you wait, you’re free to do whatever you please while you wait for your tax pro to do the rest.
- Once your tax pro has finished your return, all that’s left to do is review and pay.
Our Experience
Having never used a tax professional before, we were a bit leery and skeptical of how this was going to work for us, especially with the complexity of our situation. But at the same time, we felt pretty desperate for a better solution than what we’ve done the past few years. In addition to the usual stress of taxes, we wanted ours done extra early this year, for adoption purposes. So we were eager to see how Tax Pro Go worked.
Getting started with Tax Pro Go was a breeze. It was simple to sign up and we liked how they have clear, upfront pricing. There’s nothing more frustrating than finding out about additional or hidden fees.
We also immediately noticed the easy-to-use interface and appreciated that it was mobile-friendly. Often times, you hear that a service is “virtual” but the technology is not user-friendly and you end up wasting your time trying to figure it out. This was not the case at all with Tax Pro Go.
We were matched with a tax pro right away and began communicating with him using H&R Block’s secure messaging platform.
From there, we simply needed to upload our documents and any information that the tax pro would need in order to process our return. We were impressed at how easy it was to upload documents and we also really appreciated that we were notified via email any time that there was a new message for us.
After we uploaded our documents, we were actually notified that we’d be working with a different tax pro than we had started with. This was because we had three different LLC’s that we were a part of last year, so they assigned us a tax pro better situated to handle our situation. Both tax pros, however, were friendly, and easy to work with.
Once the pro had completed our return, we reviewed and signed electronically. From there, our return was filed with the IRS and CO, both of which were accepted a short time later.
The only thing that could be seen as a negative is that it took a little bit longer to file than we were expecting. As we mentioned, the approximate turn around time is five days, whereas ours took 20 days. But we should also explain that part of that delay was unique to our situation.
We were first told that our tax pro would be able to do our Colorado partnership LLC filing, but then later were told that Tax Go Pro couldn’t offer that service and we’d either need to go into an H&R Block office for further assistance or do it ourselves. Having done it last year, we felt capable of tackling the task on our own. But, this delayed the process a bit because the tax pro needed the output of our LLC since it is a part of our income.
Despite the delay, we received frequent messages from our tax pro with updates and apologies that it was taking longer than usual. We appreciated the quality of customer service and understood since we had a more complicated tax year than most.
Our Review
Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by how easy, quick, and smooth our taxes went this year with H&R Block’s Tax Pro Go. It was affordable, we were taken good care of, and for the first time ever, our taxes were done six weeks early!! On top of that, we can rest peacefully at night knowing that our taxes were done correctly and that we don’t have to worry about the what-ifs. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders.
Even better, we’ve had more time to focus on what’s most important to us right now. Being with family, continuing to seek out adventure while we wait on the adoption, and plan our future travels as a family of three! We’ve truly felt much more present and relaxed this tax season.
While waiting for our tax pro to finish filing, we even had the chance to go ice climbing! Dan surprised me for Valentine’s Day and planned the entire outing. We love getting outdoors and trying new things and we had a blast. At one point while we were climbing, we looked at each other and said “we’re doing our taxes right now!” just like those Tax Pro Go commercials you’ve seen! We laughed and it made the experience that much more fun knowing that we weren’t sacrificing our time trying to figure out our taxes on our own, like we had in years past.
We, of course, had to capture the moment on camera, so we hope you enjoy our own version of a Tax Pro Go commercial. Maybe next year, they’ll cast us! Ha!
Even though our tax situation should be less complicated and we could do our own taxes next year, we agree that we would use the Tax Pro Go service again. In fact, after feeling the relief we felt this tax season, I’m not sure we’ll ever go back to filing our taxes on our own. We felt a bit spoiled! So consider this a warning if you’re a DIY tax filer.
Try Tax Pro Go for yourself!
We have full confidence recommending Tax Pro Go as an excellent option for getting your taxes done this year without having to visit a tax office in person. Whatever “detour” you’re on yourself, we trust that the tax pros at H&R Block will take care of you, like they took care of us.
Get $20 off with our unique code!
If you’re interested in trying Tax Pro Go to file your taxes, you can use this unique coupon code to get $20 off the cost of getting your taxes done with Tax Pro Go:
*COUPON CODE: 13741
Tell us in the comments what you plan to do with the extra time you gain by having Tax Pro Go file your taxes!
We can’t wait to hear about your own adventures and plans. Maybe you’ll even make your own commercial, too! Either way, we hope you enjoy the gift of extra time and less stress this tax season.