The New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, broadened his attack on tax preparation giant H &R Block yesterday, alleging that the company threatened to fire tax preparers who did not push clients toward money-losing retirement accounts.

In an amended complaint to a lawsuit filed by his office in March, Mr. Spitzer, who is running for governor, claims that H&R Block “attempted to bribe and pressure” its employees to sell a particular individual retirement account, the Express IRA. These low-interest money market accounts, the complaint alleges, were guaranteed to lose money for the vast majority of account holders.

“Tax professionals were berated by senior management at national conferences to ‘sell more IRAs’ or ‘there’s the door,'” the new complaint alleges. “In at least one district, there was a quota system where tax professionals were required to sell a certain number of Express IRAs or face dismissal prior to the peak tax preparation time. In the Northeast region, which includes New York, H &R Block penalized tax professionals who did not sell Express IRAs by limiting their access to customers.”

When he first filed the suit on March 15, Mr. Spitzer said that an H &R Block employee contacted his office with concerns about the accounts, prompting the investigation and lawsuit.

H&R Block, which is based in Kansas City, Mo., has not yet filed a response to the complaint. The company has more than 10,000 offices in America and, in 2004, served more than 19 million clients, according to its Web site. The company, which was once focused only in the tax return business, has in recent years sought to offer a broad array of financial services, including investment advice.

The company has defended the accounts in question, claiming that the Express IRAs have helped hundreds of thousands of Americans put away money for the future. Mr. Spitzer’s lawsuit triggered more than a dozen similar class action lawsuits across the country, a spokesman for the company wrote in an e-mail.

The spokesman, Nicholas Iammartino, wrote that the lawsuits against the accounts “are transparent efforts to pry money from our company even though we’ve always acted properly and the facts are on our side. We will vigorously defend ourselves in court if needed.”

Through its lawsuit, Mr. Spitzer’s office seeks to force H&R Block to pay penalties of up to $250 million and restitution to account holders.

H&R Block has opened more than 600,000 Express IRA accounts in the past four years, with about 30,000 New Yorkers holding accounts. The accounts require a minimum deposit of $300, which is generally less than the minimum for retirement accounts offered by many other companies. But the legal complaint alleged that a variety of fees outpace the interest those accounts are expected to make.

“The situation is worst for H &R Block’s poorest customers, whom H&R Block claims it is helping,” the suit alleges.

The complaint further states that a hypothetical $300 investment in an H&R Block IRA made by a 23-year-old investor could shrink to $40 by the time that person turned 65.

Except in fine print on brochures and paperwork, H &R Block does not alert prospective customers to the various fees that would sap the majority of the accounts of the initial deposits, the suit alleges.

Those fees include an annual $10 fee and a $15 starting fee.

Senior executives at the company were apparently aware of concerns about the accounts. The CEO of H&R Block, Mark Ernst, wrote an e-mail in 2002, when the accounts were first marketed, acknowledging that the “general sense” was that they were “designed to nickel and dime clients to the point where our field people don’;t [sic] feel as good about the product as they should,” according to the complaint.

In its response to the amended complaint yesterday, H &R Block issued a statement that read, in part:

“That the Attorney General’s office has chosen to ignore the facts, rely on information taken out of context, and continue to attack our company and our product seems tailored to objectives other than the merits of this case.”

H&R Block is represented by a former New York attorney general, Robert Abrams, now of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.