DeclinetoState
03-16-2006, 01:11 AM
Spitzer's at it again.
By Joe Giannone and Bill Rigby
NEW YORK (Reuters) - H&R Block Inc. (HRB (http://finance.myway.com/jsp/qt/full.jsp?symbol_search_text=HRB)) the largest U.S. tax preparer, fraudulently marketed retirement savings plans that caused hundreds of thousands of mostly low-income clients to lose money, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
The suit seeks $250 million in fines plus refunds after H&R Block steered roughly 500,000 tax return customers to invest in individual retirement accounts, but failed to disclose high hidden fees that actually outpaced interest earned on the accounts, the attorney general said.
As a result, about 85 percent of these customers lost money, Spitzer said.
The suit is the latest in a line of legal and accounting issues faced by H&R Block and comes at a crucial time for the tax preparer as millions of Americans get ready to file taxes before the April 17 deadline. Its shares fell more than 4 percent.
http://finance.myway.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?section=news&feed=bus&src=202&news_id=bus-n15221176&date=20060315
By Joe Giannone and Bill Rigby
NEW YORK (Reuters) - H&R Block Inc. (HRB (http://finance.myway.com/jsp/qt/full.jsp?symbol_search_text=HRB)) the largest U.S. tax preparer, fraudulently marketed retirement savings plans that caused hundreds of thousands of mostly low-income clients to lose money, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
The suit seeks $250 million in fines plus refunds after H&R Block steered roughly 500,000 tax return customers to invest in individual retirement accounts, but failed to disclose high hidden fees that actually outpaced interest earned on the accounts, the attorney general said.
As a result, about 85 percent of these customers lost money, Spitzer said.
The suit is the latest in a line of legal and accounting issues faced by H&R Block and comes at a crucial time for the tax preparer as millions of Americans get ready to file taxes before the April 17 deadline. Its shares fell more than 4 percent.
http://finance.myway.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?section=news&feed=bus&src=202&news_id=bus-n15221176&date=20060315