H & R Block is a tax preparation company in the United States declaring in excess of 22 million customers worldwide. They also have offices in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The location in Kansas City, Missouri additionally includes a business consulting service, banking and personal finance.
Henry Bloch was at Harvard Business School attending classes when he came across a brochure in the Harvard Library that demonstrated the confrontations facing America’s small businesses in the early 1940’s. The communication ignited a desire for Henry to assist small businesses prosper. He envisioned a company supplying broad services, including organization and compilation, accounting, short-term workers, and tax administration for small companies.
Henry and his older brother, Leon, borrowed $5,000 from their aunt, and proposed to make Henry’s dream a reality. The brothers launched United Business Company in 1946. It supplied accounting services from a rented storeroom office in Kansas City, Missouri on Main Street. The company was strained the first year, and Leon went back to law school. On the other hand, Henry was determined to make the company work. He finally obtained an accounting job for a small hamburger stand, and the company took off. Shortly, Henry’s brother, Richard went in with him and rapidly labored his way up to partner.
In 1955, the company changed when a customer recommended that the brothers promote tax preparation services in The Kansas City Star. All over the city, people came to the Bloch brothers to have their taxes done, inducing Henry and Richard to concentrate entirely in income tax preparation. The brothers became conscious that “Bloch” was hard for clients to spell and pronounce as their business grew. On January 15, 1955, the brothers incorporated and renamed their company H & R Block, Inc.
Henry Bloch was highlighted in a television advertisement that began in 1972 and that became the catalyst for H & R Block turning into one of the most commonly familiar brand names in the United States. Henry Bloch’s straightforward Midwestern style and his focal point on personal honesty and dedication to customers made H & R Block identified with him for the next 20 years.
H & R Block was managing more than 10 million tax returns each year by 1986 and had opened offices in Australia and Canada. Also in 1986, Block joined with the Internal Revenue Service to initiate electronic filing. Block has gotten more advanced into the digital empire, with online tax preparation and tax software, since then. Starting in the 1990s, the business started to develop into the financial services ring, presenting banking, and mortgage and business services.
Source: http://www.hrblock.com/