	h and r block hrb sees gains from tax reform with the april tax return deadline less than a month away confused taxpayers will be converging on h and r block inc s offices to interpret the new tax codes financial results for the nation s largest tax preparer are expected to be good in fiscal but next year could be a bonanza analysts say for the short term the key word is confusion block vice president tom bloch said in an interview when congress drastically changes laws confusion results and tax preparers benefit bloch said next year when taxpayers take the new forms and place them side by side to compare them more people will throw their hands up and say i m going to get help he said tax forms will look very different next year he added kidder peabody analyst herbert buchbinder expects block s fiscal year to end april to show good gains over fiscal ings of mln dlrs or dlrs a share on revenues of mln dlrs he estimates block s fiscal ings at to dlrs next year block could have a bonanza buchbinder said based on estimates of a larger work force block could show a gain of more than five pct in tax forms prepared he said in the tax season block prepared u s tax returns up pct over the previous year the internal revenue service estimates about mln individual income tax returns will be filed for the tax season up from last year s mln forms professional tax preparers accounted for just over million forms according to the irs for the longer term while confusion will continue to bring clients into block s tax preparation offices worldwide there are some changes in the act that will have a negative effect bloch conceded certain changes in filing requirements will shorten the tax return and in some cases simplify the form he noted in addition some low income wage ers will be taken off the tax rolls he said block is currently analyzing its price structure to try to offset some of the negatives last tax season the average cost for each return in the u s amounted to dlrs and dlrs worldwide bloch said this tax season rates will be up about three or four pct in line with the inflation rate he said block expects some expansion this tax season of its electronic filing system which directly feeds into the irs and can speed up the refund process block can choose where and by how much it wants to expand into the seven cities made available for the direct filing by the irs bloch noted the irs estimates about returns will be directly filed this tax season up from the returns injected in the tax season first kansas city analyst jonathan braatz said that block will benefit greatly from lower tax rates in fiscal braatz expects block s advertising budget to be about the same as last year which will be helped a bit by lower costs for television ads they may get a little more bang for their buck he said he estimates block has about mln dlrs cash on its balance sheet sheet and says if interest rates rise it could be of great benefit to them reuter 
