pro tax prep stalls to a crawl amid covid-extended season

data chartpros hold the margin, but barely.

by beth bellor

new tax filing statistics show only a couple of upticks over last year: diy e-filings and irs website traffic, suggesting tax practitioners have hit the big “pause” button on tax season 2020.

more: tax pro e-filings down 20 percent | irs web traffic doubles over year-ago | covid drowns irs in new filings | 2020 tax season comes to a screeching halt | the tax season 2020 dumpster fire | tax pros fall behind 6.2% in returns filed | tax pros trail by 908,000 returns | tax pro irs filings lag by 532,000
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then again, if you’re in i.t. at the irs, that might not be such happy news.

the internal revenue service had received 128.2 million individual income tax returns as of the week ending may 8, the latest data available, down 9.4 percent from the same period in 2019. it had processed 115.8 million returns, down 15 percent.

the agency’s processing rate stood at 90.3 percent.

e-filings

electronic filings at 115.7 million were down 9.6 percent. tax professionals handled 58.2 million of those, down 18.8 percent. self-preparers submitted 57.5 million, up 2.2 percent.

the pros retained their edge with 50.3 percent of e-filings.

website visits

visits to irs.gov at nearly 1.1 billion were up 141.7 percent year over year.

refunds

total refunds numbered 94.4 million, down 7.1 percent, in the total amount of $255.4 billion, down 7.9 percent. the average refund of $2,707 was down 0.8 percent.

direct deposit refunds numbered 79.1 million, down 9.1 percent, in the total amount of $224.2 billion, down 10.1 percent. the average direct deposit refund of $2,835 was down 1.2 percent.