It’s not your imagination: it’s been a really, really busy tax season.
The Internal Revenue Service announced that tax filings for 2014 have outpaced filings for the same time last year. As of February 7, the first full week for which data is available, the IRS received 27.3 million returns, up 2.5% compared to the same time last year. And early filers are taking advantage of the opportunity to file electronically: e-filed returns account for almost 96% of returns filed so far this year.
As noted before, early filers tend to be those seeking a tax refund. Taxpayers seeking refunds are showing a boost early on in 2014 with almost 19.5 million refunds issued so far this year. That represents an increase of more than 18% compared to the same time last year. The average refund to date is $3,317, up 4.6% compared to the same time last year. Don’t get too excited, though: those who file early tend to have an economic incentive to do so, collecting a refund larger than those who file later in the season.
Interestingly, visits to the IRS web site are down for 2014 (89,683,640 visits compared to 90,706,865 for the same time frame in 2013) despite encouragement from IRS to use the web instead of the phone service. The IRS hasn’t yet released data on usage for the IRS2Go app. Based on what I’m hearing from taxpayers, I suspect that would account for the difference.
