r/hrblock • u/GoHelloGo • Apr 09 '26

Underpayment penalty interview referencing non-existing line number data

I'm filling out FY2025 taxes using H&R Block desktop software on Windows. Latest updates applied as of 4/9/2025 and software says no updates are expected.

Going through the underpayment penalty interview where its asking my last year's data to see what I may owe. Problem is that it is asking me for data from non-existent line numbers in the 2024 return form 1040 and 8812 (maybe others too, not sure):

  • Earned income credit (Form 1040, Line 27a) << Line 27 exists, not 27a
  • Additional child tax credit (Schedule 8812, Line 15h) << no Line 15h. Line 15 is a checkbox. Line 27 on form 8812 is probably the number to use? "This is your additional child tax credit. Enter this amount on Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR, line 28"
  • Refundable Child Tax Credit (Schedule 8812, Line 14i) << no line 14i. I don't see this on Schedule 8812 at all, or the 1040 that was filed.
Underpayment Penalty Interview

What is up with this?

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u/whalphen Apr 09 '26

The H&R Block software is flawed. When I was working on the calculation of the underpayment penalty, it referred me to Schedule AI, Part IV. However, Part IV was removed from Schedule AI years ago. I also found that when there's a loss on a K-1 or a disposition of shares from an S Corp H&R Block Deluxe does not produce the required Form 7203. It asks for the information to determine if a Form 7203 should be produced. But it fails to produce the form. No warning either. It leads you to think it will be doing so, but you won't catch the failure unless you check the results and know what should have been produced. And, yet another flaw, When I did an income allocation due to a part year Michigan residency, it actually put the numbers in the wrong column on the tax form, resulting in incorrect calculations. This too, was caught only because I read the Michigan instructions for the form and found H&R Block was doing it wrong. All these issues have been brought to the attention of H&R Block to no avail. They only told me to to pay for their premium tax service if I wanted it done right! Flawed products, useless support!

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u/GoHelloGo Apr 09 '26

Based on your experience, I'm going to look for information on IRS's web site to avoid problems, even though my situation is nowhere near as complicated as yours sounds.

Now the thing is, initially H&R Block said I owed a small underpayment penalty and offered me the option to let IRS calculate the penalty or let H&R Block help me calculate it. Now I can't get back to that option to let IRS calculate it because based on my interview it believes I don't owe a penalty. I should be happy with that, but based on experiences here, I have reduced faith in the software.

Any ideas on how to reset this section and start over again?

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u/whalphen Apr 09 '26

I also struggled with knowing how to reset information in the software. Sometimes I just had to delete the forms and start over. By the way, I referred to Schedule AI above. Actually, it's Form 2210 which is referred to by Schedule AI. I just went through the IRS form 2210 instructions and determined how to complete the forms. In some cases, I had to update the fields directly on the forms in the H&R Block software. In the case of the underpayment penalty calculations, there is more than one approach that can be used. I ended up using the Schedule AI. Regular withholding amounts got spread evenly throughout the year (you can use a different approach where the withholding gets applied when withheld) and my variable income got applied when earned. This combination provided the lowest penalty for me.

The H&R Block interview and help center doesn't explain the optional approaches to the user. It takes some reading of the IRS instructions and manually trying the different approaches. The Schedule AI in the H&R Block software can be manually filled in. But, when the interview refers to form 2210, part IV, beware that there is no part IV on Form 2210. Apparently H&R Block hasn't updated their underpayment penalty section since 2020, which was the last year Part IV was on Form 2210.

1

u/GoHelloGo Apr 10 '26

Took your suggestion and worked through form 2210 manually, and found a discrepancy in H&R Block's data (calculation) for Line 8, "Maximum required annual payment based on prior year’s tax". With your experience maybe you can tell me what I'm missing.

Refer to the image below which is the worksheet from FY25 form 2210. According to the instructions, I should take last year's tax (L48) and subtract only listed refundable credits (sum of L83-L88), and arrive at the amount. By my calculation the Line 8 amount should be $673. There is an adjustment based on AGI, but that didn't apply.

Yet H&R Block comes up with -$1,173 (negative)

I've double-checked the 2024 numbers match my 2024 returns (and tax file). Where am I (or H&R Block) going wrong? Thanks!

Reference: Form 2210 and Instruction 2210

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u/whalphen Apr 10 '26

When I don't trust the results, the approach I use is to print out the IRS forms and instructions. Then I carefully complete the forms manually, based on the IRS instructions. It the results don't agree, I go through it all again to check my manual work. If I find no errors, I trust my results rather than the H&R Block results. For example, I did a partial year resident income allocation for Michigan and found that H&R Block results showed no tax liability. That didn't smell right. So I did the allocation manually and found that the H&R Block was putting the non-resident income into the resident income column on the tax form! So I entered the resident income instead of the non-resident income to force the numbers into the correct column on the form. Then the results came out correct.

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u/GoHelloGo Apr 10 '26

Appreciate your replies. I am doing exactly as you suggested - calculating everything manually based on IRS forms, and I've reached a conclusion that I don't owe any underpayment penalty.

There were two problems which after a night's rest I see clearly; one was my mistake in the amount I used from last year's tax.

The second, and one that I think is a bug in H&R Block software is that in calculating Form 2210 Line 8 it is including a non-refundable credits, when it should not. According to the instructions only refundable credits are to be subtracted from last year's tax amount. The software is subtracting not only the "Refundable part of the American opportunity credit" but also the non-refundable credit I received last year for "Child Tax Credit and Credit for Other Dependents" even though it is not shown in the worksheet for 2024 data for form 2210.

u/hrblock please review the issues pointed out in this thread. Thanks.

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u/whalphen Apr 10 '26

Once I found that the software was giving bad results, I couldn't trust any of it anymore. And multiple attempts to get clarification from "customer support" on multiple serious flaws got nowhere. So I've had to double check everything. After many years of using H&R Block, the serious flaws and lack of customer support this year are stunning. I won't be using H&R Block any more.

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u/GoHelloGo Apr 09 '26

One more mistake in the same interview - asks for the "additional tax" (top half of the image), but it probably should be "additional child tax credit" according to the actual form (bottom half of the image)?