The number of individual tax returns prepared by The number of assisted returns dropped to just under 13 million for the 2015 tax season, off from 13.5 million a year ago. Total returns, including the Free File Alliance, dropped to 20.5 million from 20.7 million. There were 6.9 million returns prepared via all kinds of Block software, up from 6.4 million.
The company did not quantify the revenue increase. That information will be provided when Block releases its fiscal 2015 results on June 8.
Block continued to blame two factors in its decline. One is the company's discontinuing its free federal 1040 EZ promotion. The other is fraud with Block insisting that those who improperly claim the Earned Income Tax Credit are shifting from assisted preparation to do-it-yourself.
CEO William Cobb once again honed in on the uneven standards regarding fraud. He noted that while assisted returns are monitored, those filed via D-I-Y products are not.
"We need mandatory standards for paid tax preparers. Without them, consumers will continue to be victimized by people who aren't sufficiently trained, or worse, knowingly commit fraud," he said in a prepared statement. "We also need uniform standards for tax returns claiming refundable credits such as the EITC, regardless of the channel through which they are filed."