I realize I had zero credibility on this board, but I do work closely with IRS as part of a VITA (free tax prep program).
Here's what we've been hearing.
It's affecting nearly all tax preparers who e-file - not just Block. We use another provider and are also experiencing this problem.
It seems to mostly be affecting returns filed from February 14 - 22nd.
It also seems to only be affecting the American Opportunity Credit, not the Lifetime Learning Credit (I can attest to that - I filed 2/14 with an LLC and have had my refund for a week and a half).
The problem is that three of the new questions - about whether the kid has a felony drug arrest, and two others - were not carrying through to IRS' processing system. We had them filled out on our end, in our software - but somewhere in the "sending over to IRS" process, those answers vanished.
We had a call with IRS and our software provider on Wednesday that said "we're looking into it". There's basically nothing anyone can do at this point but wait. They haven't even figured out whose "fault" it is - although, personally, since it's more than one software provider, I blame IRS.
Not good news for a filing season rife with problems already.