CHARTS & GRAPHS

Tax Refunds, Tax Pro Market Share Trending Up

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* Total refunds issued represents returns received and processed in 2024 – the current year only. The number of direct deposit refunds represents returns received in the current and prior year but processed in 2024.

 

How long before more figures flip positive … or might they not?

By Beth Bellor

The 2024 filing season has been seven days shorter than 2023’s, but that’s making less difference as individual income tax returns keep dropping into the Internal Revenue Service inbox, just 3 percent off last year’s pace.

MORE: Tax Pros Handle 37.7% of E-filings | Tax Pros File 33% of Early Returns
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The IRS had received 44.6 million such returns as of Feb. 23, the last week for which data has been released. It had processed 44.1 million returns, down 3.6 percent.
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Refunds Up as Tax Pros Tackle 41.5% of E-filings

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* Total refunds issued represent returns received and processed in 2024 – the current year only. The number of direct deposit refunds represents returns received in the current and prior year but processed in 2024.

Also: The IRS realizes a footnote is in order and we are shocked.

By Beth Bellor

Average tax refunds are on the rise, so the weekly filing data has one uptick besides the amount of traffic to the IRS website – an increase that perhaps isn’t a positive.

MORE: Tax Pros Handle 37.7% of E-filings | Tax Pros File 33% of Early Returns
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The Internal Revenue Service had received 34.7 million returns, down 5.7 percent from the same period one year ago, as of the week ending Feb. 16, the latest data available. Lower numbers are no surprise, of course, because there had been only 19 days in the 2024 filing season, which opened Jan. 29, compared to the 26 days there had been in the 2023 season, which opened Jan. 23.
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Accounting Hiring Hits Another High

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Overall employment in the accounting profession

 

Tax prep is less than half the increase.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

Is the accounting profession closing its staffing gap?

It sure seems that way, as employment hit an all-time high in January. Women fared well, too, reaching record levels in the field overall and in payroll services.

MORE: Staff Wages Hit Record High | Despite Staffing Crunch, Firms Freeze Pay Raises | Tax & Accounting Firms Grow for 9th Straight Month | Tax & Accounting Profession Grows, but Wages Don’t | Tax and Accounting Pay Advancing at 5.9% Pace | Accounting Jobs Up 4% for Year
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Nationally, unemployment held at 3.7 percent as total nonfarm payroll employment increased 353,000, according to the latest data available to CPA Trendlines Research. Of those new hires, 74,000 came in professional and business services, well above 2023’s monthly average of 14,000.
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Tax Pros Handle 37.7% of E-filings

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Paper still used by 2.2 percent of filers.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

Tax season moves slowly forward, and tax professionals slowly gain ground

MORE: Tax Pros File 33% of Early Returns | If Only the IRS’s Tax Pro Were Useful | The Nightmare of Non-credentialed Tax Preparers | Must the IRS Be a Dark Hole? | IRS Plays Whac-A-Mole with the Phones | Tax Pros Are Expanding and Earning More
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As of the week ending Feb. 9 – the latest for which data are available – the IRS had received 25.6 million individual income tax returns, down 11.4 percent from the same period a year ago. It had processed 25.4 million returns, down 4.4 percent.

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Staff Wages Hit Record High

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Payroll services staff hourly earnings

Their bosses aren’t seeing the same increases.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

Going into the New Year, the average American is doing somewhat better. Earnings are up a bit; unemployment is down a bit.

MORE: Despite Staffing Crunch, Firms Freeze Pay Raises | Tax & Accounting Firms Grow for 9th Straight Month | Tax & Accounting Profession Grows, but Wages Don’t | Tax and Accounting Pay Advancing at 5.9% Pace | Accounting Jobs Up 4% for Year
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For employees in the tax, accounting and bookkeeping business, things are more complicated. Pay for employees overall? Usually down, way down. But pay for staff in every sector? All-time highs.
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Despite Staffing Crunch, Firms Freeze Pay Raises

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Average hourly earnings of all employees in the accounting profession. Hint: Don’t show this chart to recruits.

 

Millennials say compensation isn’t the most important thing. Employers say, “Heard.”

By Beth Bellor

Suppose you’re a leader in a field that has fretted for months over staff shortages. Would you put on your thinking cap, plug it in for a while and come up with… frozen pay?

MORE: Tax & Accounting Firms Grow for 9th Straight Month | Tax & Accounting Profession Grows, but Wages Don’t | Tax and Accounting Pay Advancing at 5.9% Pace | Accounting Jobs Up 4% for Year
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Strangely enough, that’s what the latest tax and accounting profession earnings data show. Compared to previous months, the trend is stagnant or even down. The only bright spot was in payroll services staff, which also added bodies – but cut hours.

(How’s that song go? If it weren’t for bad luck?)
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Tax & Accounting Firms Grow for 9th Straight Month

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Overall accounting profession employment

 

Bookkeeping is playing the tortoise game.

By Beth Bellor

Bit by bit, the accounting profession is growing. Despite a staffing shortage. Despite an uncertain economy. Despite everything, tax and accounting firms are steadily adding to headcounts.

MORE: Tax & Accounting Profession Grows, but Wages Don’t | Tax and Accounting Pay Advancing at 5.9% Pace | Accounting Jobs Up 4% for Year
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As tax and accounting professionals begin planning for the year ahead, the CPA Trendlines Research team is fielding a new survey to check the pulse of the profession, detect emerging trends, and identify the best success strategies going into 2024.
Join the Survey. Get the Results.
Click here to launch the 10-minute survey.

According to the latest data mined by CPA Trendlines Research, new highs were reached in September in employment overall, staff, CPA firm staff, bookkeeping, women overall and women in CPA firms. Staff also hit a new mark for hourly earnings.

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