Tax giant H&R Block to open in Dublin

H&R Block, one of the world’s largest tax service providers, is to open a Dublin office with the intention of cornering a share of the tax returns market.

The Kansas-based company handles more than 24 million tax returns from 1,100 retail offices in the United States and 1,700 in Canada and Brazil. The company offers its own consumer tax software as well as online tax preparation and electronic filing from their website.

The company is to set up its Dublin operation in No 1 Hatch Street where it will rent 4,645sq m (5,000sq ft) previously occupied by XL Capital, the American insurance giant which availed of the fall in property values to buy the former United Services Club on St Stephen's Green for €8 million.

H&R will be paying a rent of €376 per sq m (€35 per sq ft), somewhat less than the €559 per sq m (€52 per sq ft) agreed by XL under its lease which runs out at the end of this year.

Deloitte are also renting about 2,322sq m (25, 000 sq ft) in the same block which is convenient to its head office on nearby Earlsfort Terrace.

Conor Whelan of BNP Paribas Real Estate, who handled the H&R Block lettings, said that the agreed rent of €35 per sq ft was increasingly emerging as the new standard rate for good quality office buildings in the city centre. Fergal Burke of GVA Donal O Buachalla advised H&R Block.

No 1 Hatch Street, the former headquarters of INM, was acquired more than a decade ago by a Swedish investor who enlarged and upgraded it.

The same investor bought Findlater House, an office and retail block near the Gresham Hotel in O'Connell Street in 1994 for €5.3 million and sold it to Garret Kelleher's Shelbourne Developments in 2005 for €31 million.

The same building changed hands a few months ago for €6 million and is now to be converted into a hotel.