more than diy’ers, but still behind last year’s pace.
by beth bellor
many tax filing statistics remain on the negative side, but tax prep professionals hit a bright spot as they began outnumbering the diyers.
more: the big free-file flop | the demise of schedule a? | refunds still up, but only by 0.7% | survey: busy season goes sour | tax refunds up 1.7% | lessons learned: how the federal shutdown hit busy season 2019 | tax refund fury roils busy season | taxpayer advocate slams congress over funding
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as of march 15, the latest data available, the irs had received 75.9 million individual income tax returns, down 2.5 percent from the same time last year. the agency had processed 73.5 million returns, down 2.4 percent.
the processing return rate was 96.9 percent.
e-filing
e-filed returns totaled 71.8 million, down 1.3 percent. tax professionals processed 36.9 million, down 3.6 percent, and 35 million were self-prepared, up 1.3 percent.
tax pros took the edge in preparation, handling 51.3 percent of e-filings.
e-filings make up 94.6 percent of all filings.
website visits
visits to irs.gov numbered 320.7 million, up 11.2 percent.
refunds
refunds numbered 61.7 million, down 3 percent, and totaled $177.2 billion, down 3.1 percent. the average refund of $2,957 was down 0.1 percent.
direct deposit refunds numbered 54.7 million, up 0.1 percent, and totaled $167.6 billion, down 0.7 percent. the average direct deposit refund of $3,065 was down 0.8 percent.
direct deposit makes up 91.2 percent of refunds and 94.6 percent of the total amount refunded. the discrepancy comes because the average direct deposit refund is 3.7 percent higher than its paper counterpart.