pros keep the edge in e-filings and some people just won’t give up paper.
by beth bellor
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a season of down notes for individual income tax returns ended the same way.
more tax season data: with 4 days left, tax stats were still down | refunds edge up as tax season winds down | tax refunds catching up to last year | tax professionals accelerate filing pace as busy season heads for the home stretch | individual tax filings still lag behind 2016 | 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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data for the week ending april 21, the week in which the filing deadline fell, was just released and it paints the same picture we’ve seen since january: overall returns and e-filings down, with refunds the only scant positives.
the irs had received 135.6 million returns, down 0.7 percent from 2016. it had processed 128.8 million, down 0.5 percent. that pegs the processing rate at 95 percent, with last-minute filers likely slowing the agency’s 97-plus percent rate it had kept the previous month and a half.
for the curious, the number of returns filed in the same period in 2015 totaled 134.2 million, so we’re 1 percent ahead of that mark.
e-filings totaled 122.2 million, down 0.3 percent. tax professionals handled 70.4 million of those, down 0.7 percent, while self-preparers filed 51.8 million, up 0.2 percent, the only positive in filings.
for the season, pros handled 57.6 percent of e-filings, a slight drop back from the previous week’s season high of 58.4 percent.
visits to irs.gov, at 312.3 million, were down 4.1 percent.
total refunds at 97.1 million were statistically flat, differing by only about 25,000 more in 2017. the total amount refunded was $268.3 billion and the average refund was $2,763, both figures up 1.9 percent from the same period in 2016.
there were 81.7 million direct deposit refunds, up 0.5 percent. the total amount refunded was $239.4 billion, up 2.2 percent, and the average refund of $2,932 was up 1.7 percent.
direct deposit accounted for
- 1 percent of refunds
- 2 percent of the total amount refunded
and direct deposit refunds ran 6.1 percent higher than the overall average.
or to flip the script, those seeking paper checks for their refunds account for
- 9 percent of refunds
- 8 of the total amount refunded, which is still a hefty $28.9 billion
speaking of paper, those who choose to use printed forms, ink pens and snail mail make up 9 percent of all filers.