H&R Block, Inc. (NYSE:HRB) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 9, 2023 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Michaella Gallina - VP of IR

Jeff Jones - President and CEO

Tony Bowen - CFO

Conference Call Participants

George Tong - Goldman Sachs

Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research

Scott Schneeberger - Oppenheimer & Company

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to H&R Block's Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to hand the call over to Vice President, Investor Relations, Michaella Gallina. Please go ahead.

Michaella Gallina

Thank you, Latif. Good afternoon, everyone, and Welcome to H&R Block third quarter fiscal 2023 financial results conference call. Joining me today are Jeff Jones, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tony Bowen, our Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today we issued a press release and presentation that can be downloaded or viewed live on our website at investors.hrblock.com. Our call is being broadcast and webcast live and a replay of the webcast will be available for 90 days.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind listeners that comments made by Management may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities Laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors.

For a description of these risks and uncertainties, please see H&R Block's Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q as updated periodically with our other SEC filings. Please note some metrics we'll discuss today are presented on a non-GAAP basis. We've reconciled the comparable GAAP and non-GAAP figures in the appendix of our presentation. Finally, the content of this call contains time-sensitive information accurate only as of today, May 9, 2023. H&R Block undertakes no obligation to revise or otherwise update any statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this call.

With that, I will now turn it over to Jeff.

Jeff Jones

Thank you, Michaella. Good afternoon everyone and thanks for joining us.

Today, I will share highlights from the third quarter and discuss our tax season performance in context of the unusual market dynamics this year. Tony will share our financials in more detail later in the call then we'll open it up for Q&A.

As you'll recall, we and others expected this to be a normal tax filing year with the pandemic largely behind us, no new federal programs, a large number of stimulus filers having left the industry and strong employment. Generally tax return volume was expected to grow about 1%, which is in line with its historical average. But after an initial peak, the industry volume in fact declined about 1% year-over-year, which was about 200 basis points below our expectations.