tax season half over but no one is celebrating

pros are gaining ground in e-filings.

by beth bellor
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we’re halfway through tax season! woohoo, blow the party horns!

more tax season data: tax pros filing only 51% of e-returns | tax refunds up slightly | tax filings data looking less squirrely | tax return filings still lag, but pros hold 57% of market | tax filings down, but irs blames the calendar
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where’s your horn? you don’t seem to be celebrating. what up, dog?

filing statistics are down, and some of you aren’t shy about suggesting why.

cpa john. r brougher iii said, “well, let’s see…what have i been busy with this year? oh yeah…making sure all 1099s & w-2s to the irs and ssa by jan. 31 instead of having more time to fit those submissions in. correcting the filings of same that went out with errors that would have otherwise been caught prior to sending the irs/ssa copies later rather than sooner. the rest of my time has been spent dealing with trying to get the partnership returns out the door a month earlier than before for the people who actually expect them to be filed by the due date without extensions. every now and then, i get to work on a personal return.”

ruth wenger, cpa and mba, agreed and noted, “many more people are self-preparing because the software companies, through which we buy expensive tax software, are providing low-cost or free filing to taxpayers. so, essentially the accountants are competing with the very same companies holding us hostage to their software! i see no reversal in this trend. i prepare primarily business returns and very complicated 1040s. the straightforward returns have largely gone away.”

“this trend has been foreseeable for quite a few years. well over a decade, in fact,” jassen bowman advised. “i would hope by now that most practitioners have at least *started* transitioning into either more lucrative services, or carving out niche specializations for their 1040 services (high net worth individuals, physicians, real estate investors, business returns only, etc). again, the data and warning signs have been quite clear for years. it’s our responsibility as business owners to adapt to the market, not to expect the market to remain stagnant or constrained to our business models.”

so where do we stand?

as of march 10, the latest week for which data are available, the internal revenue service had received 69.4 million returns, down 6.8 percent from the same time period last year. “same time period” compares to march 11, 2016, but the irs continues to note that “calendar year-to-year comparisons are difficult at this early point in the season, as four additional days of tax return processing are included in the 2016 totals.” yes, halfway through it’s still being called an “early point.”

returns processed number 67.3 million, also down 6.8 percent. the happy news for citizens is that the agency continues to churn returns back at a good clip, currently 97 percent.

e-filing receipts total 65 million, down 6.6 percent. tax pros account for 34.1 million of those, down 8.2 percent, and self-preparers for 30.9 million, down 4.7 percent. that has tax pros gaining a little ground, handling 52.5 percent of e-filed returns.

happily, that percentage has been trending upward:

 

visits to irs.gov number 215 million, down 7.3 percent.

as for refunds … the irs is saying the same kind of thing it has been all season: “early season refund numbers and dollar amounts are affected by the new law requiring refunds involving the earned income tax credit and additional child tax credit to be held until the later part of february. many taxpayers claiming these credits traditionally file during the opening weeks of tax season.”

well, that hold was lifted feb. 15, and “opening weeks” are long past. so tra la la, on to the numbers, something we can trust:

• refunds issued total 56.2 million, down 5.9 percent, and $167.1 billion, down 5 percent. the average refund is $2,973, down 1 percent.
• direct deposit refunds total 50.5 million, down 5.2 percent, and $156.8 billion, down 4.4 percent. the average direct deposit refund is $3,105, down 0.9 percent.
• direct deposit accounts for 89.8 percent of refunds, and direct deposit refunds average 4.4 percent higher than the overall total.

what’s happening in the world of paper?

non-e-filers still make up 6.4 percent of individual income tax returns. their average refund is $1,806.68, or 61 percent of the total average and 58.2 percent of the direct deposit average.

posted on march 16, 2017