Tax Refunds, Tax Pro Market Share Trending Up

data table

* 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
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

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.
READ MORE →

Refunds Up as Tax Pros Tackle 41.5% of E-filings

* 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
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

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.
READ MORE →

Tax Pros Handle 37.7% of E-filings

data table

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 UsefulThe 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
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

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.

READ MORE →

Tax Season Opens with Refunds Up 85%

data tableNearly two-thirds of returns have been self-prepared.

By Beth Bellor

The latest tax season is off to a roar, with refunds up 85 percent and processing up 29 percent above last year at this time.

MORE ON TAX SEASON: MORE: Marchternity: Just Say ‘No’ | Marchternity: The Solution Is Community | Why the IRS Is Still Doing Data Entry By Hand | News on IRS Is Maybe Sort of a Little Bit Good | Why We All Hate the Tax Code | How Bullish Are You This Tax Season? | Accountants’ Top Problems for Tax Season 2023 | Tax Season 2023: Better or Worse?

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

As of Feb. 3, the end of the first week of collections, the IRS had received 19 million individual income tax returns, up 13.5 percent from the same week in 2022. It had processed 16.8 million returns, up 29.1 percent.
READ MORE →

Marchternity: Just Say ‘No’

Whether Marchternity continues depends entirely upon you.

More on Marchternity:
The Solution Is Community, by Liz Farr

By Seth Fineberg
At Large

After nearly three years of what many tax pros consider one of the longest tax seasons on record –- a.k.a. ‘Marchternity’ –- one would think this season would be different.

MORE FINEBERG: What Bogs Down Accountants | Your Classic Business Model Won’t Allow Growth

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

To be sure, plenty of tax practitioners in late 2022 did indeed call the end of Marchternity and look forward to some sense of normalcy, as much of what caused the extended tax season in the first place appears to have subsided. So, do tax pros expect this season to be different?

READ MORE →

Tax Pro E-filing Gains vs DIY

data chartRefund amounts are up by double digits.

By CPA Trendlines

Fewer returns are coming in than in 2021 but they’re being processed faster, according to the latest data available.

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Individual income tax returns received totaled 91.3 million as of the week ending April 1, down 2.1 percent from the same week the previous year, when the tax season began 19 days later and ended 29 days later. Processed returns were at 89.3 million, up 6.6 percent. That put the latest processing rate at 97.8 percent.
READ MORE →

Down by 400,000 Returns – The End of Tax Prep?

Red Alert: Tax professional e-filings drop by 0.5% year-to-year, first year-to-year decline ever.

Final IRS stats for Busy Season 2020 shows professionals filed 0.5% fewer returns than last year and lost market share to DIY’ers.

BUSY SEASON BAROMETER:
How accountants are battling the Coronavirus recession
Join the survey. Get the answers.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

In what may be an alarming turning point for the profession, tax practitioners finished an already chaotic and bruising Tax Season 2020 after preparing a total of 73.8 million e-filed returns – a decline of 400,00, or 0.5 percent, from Tax Season 2019 – the first such reversal on record. Ever.

Jon Baron

MORE on TAX SEASON 2020: Say Hello to the New 24-Month Busy Season | When COVID ‘Got Real’ | Tax Pros Hold eFiling Market Share as Tax Seasons Winds Down | The Top Six IRS #FAILS this Tax Season (So Far) | How COVID Has Pulverized IRS Operations | The Mystery of 10 Million Missing Tax Returns | COVID Cuts Accounting Profits | Why Busy Season May Never Be the Same Again | COVID Tests Accountants’ Entrepreneurial Talents | Pro Tax Prep Stalls to a Crawl amid Covid-Extended Season | Clients, Revenues, Profits – Trending Down, Down, Down |

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

“If you are in public accounting and relying on personal return revenue, the results this year are troubling as it is the first time that professionally prepared returns actually fell from the prior year,” says Jon Baron, the longtime CEO of Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting, and now a venture capitalist with more than a couple startups in stealth mode.

READ MORE →

Tax Pros Hold eFiling Market Share as Tax Seasons Winds Down

https://www.research.net/r/finaltax20
Join the Survey. Get the Results

Refunds up but barely.

BUSY SEASON BAROMETER:
Congratulations! You survived Tax Season 2020!
Today’s Bonus Question: What’s next?

Join the survey. Get the answers.

By Beth Bellor

As the extended 2020 tax season drags to a close, nearly all the touchpoints remain in the red.

MORE: Tax Pros Take Bigger Share of E-filings | The Mystery of 10 Million Missing Tax Returns | 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 | Tax Pro E-Filings Lag by 512,000 Returns | Tax Pros Kick into High Gear | Slow Start for Tax Pro E-filing | Data Points Down as Tax Season Opens | The Fight for New Tax Clients
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

The Internal Revenue Service had received 142.4 million individual income tax returns, down 2 percent from the same period in 2019, as of July 3, the latest data available. It had processed 130.6 million returns, down 9.5 percent.
READ MORE →