the fight for new tax clients

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by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

and will refunds reverse their downward trend?

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by beth bellor

the irs is about to roll out its first filing statistics of 2020, but before it does, let’s recap 2019.

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first, the market share: how many individual income tax returns were filed, and how many of those were touched by accountants?

since 2012, the first year that tax professionals e-filed more than half of the returns, the numbers have been quite consistent. of total returns, between 51.23 and 52.2 percent were filed and electronically and by a professional. that edged down ever so slightly last year – from the 51.84 percent of 2017 and 2018 to 51.75 percent – but the overall figures increased at the same time.

when the agency published its final say of the year – the week ending dec. 27 – on individual income tax returns, the news was largely positive.

data chartthe internal revenue service received 155.8 million individual income tax returns in 2019, up by 0.6 percent from the year before. it had processed 155.6 million returns, up 0.7 percent, for a processing rate of 99.9 percent.

e-filing receipts

electronic filings totaled 138.2 million, up 2 percent. of those 80.6 million were handled by tax pros, up 0.4 percent, and 57.6 million by diyers, up 4.4 percent.

professionals submitted 58.3 percent of e-filings.

website visits

visits to irs.gov numbered 652.4 million, up 6.7 percent.

refunds

total refunds numbered 111.8 million, down .03 percent, in the total amount of $320.8 billion, down 1.7 percent. the average refund of $2,869 was down 1.4 percent.

total direct deposit refunds numbered 92.1 million, up 2.1 percent, in the total amount of $274.3 billion, up 0.2 percent. the average direct deposit refund was $2,979, down 1.9 percent.

direct deposit accounted for 82.3 percent of refunds and 85.5 percent of the total pot. on average, direct deposit refunds were 3.7 percent higher than their paper counterparts.