average refunds down 1%.
by beth bellor
as we wind down the misery that is the 2019 tax season, figures are down all over.
more: wanna change the tax world? | tax season 2019 serves up a taste of the future | tax professionals file 38 million returns | the big free-file flop | the demise of schedule a? | refunds still up, but only by 0.7%
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the number of direct deposit refunds is up, but otherwise the only “positives” are self-prepared e-filings and irs website visits, hardly bright news.
as of march 22, the latest data available, the irs had received 84.1 million individual income tax returns, down 1.9 percent from the same period last year. it had processed 81.6 million returns, down 2.1 percent.
the processing rate was the best it’s been all year at 97 percent.
e-filing
e-filing receipts totaled 79.2 million, down 0.7 percent. tax professionals handled 41.9 million e-filings, down 2.7 percent, and self-preparers turned in 37.3 million, up 1.7 percent.
tax pros submitted 52.9 percent of all e-filings.
website visits
visits to irs.gov at 340 million were up 10.7 percent.
refunds
refunds numbered 65.8 million, down 2.6 percent, and totaled $191.9 billion, down 2.9 percent. the average refund of $2,915 was down 0.3 percent.
direct deposit refunds numbered 59.5 million, up 0.4 percent, and totaled $180.4 billion, down 0.7 percent. the average direct deposit refund of $3,030 was down 1 percent.
direct deposit made up 90.4 percent of all refunds. direct deposit refunds average 4 percent higher than their paper counterparts.