It’s not your imagination: it’s a busy tax season.
With more questions than ever, taxpayers are seeking out resources to answer questions about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) penalties and premium tax credits, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) reporting requirements and identity theft. Complicating matters, due to budget cuts, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is not able to answer as many taxpayer questions over the phone or in person, leaving some taxpayers looking for answers elsewhere.
IRS has encouraged taxpayers to visit their web site (www.irs.gov) to get tax help and information. On the web site, you can search for forms and publications, research paid tax preparers, locate a tax center near you and find out what your options are for filing electronically.
It appears taxpayers are following that advice. According to IRS, the number of visitors to the web site is up nearly 20% compared with last year. In terms of numbers, that translates to 100 million visits so far this year, as compared with 85 million for the same time last year.
The number of visits doesn’t necessarily translate directly to the number of taxpayers filing returns. The IRS expects to receive about 150 million individual tax returns this year: so far, they’ve received just under 20% of those returns, or 27.5 million tax returns. That’s also up from the same time last year.
The most popular tool on the web site is also seeing a spike in popularity. Use of the “Where’s My Refund?” tool is up a whopping 91% over the same time last year. That’s probably related to taxpayer concerns over delayed state returns due to increased instances of fraud; so far, IRS has not reported the same kinds of problems that individual states are reporting. Refunds are generally moving out on schedule with IRS issuing 19.7 million refunds worth more than $66 billion. That’s up just slightly from same time last year.
Refund dollars are up, too. As of a week ago, February 6, 2015, the average refund to taxpayers is $3,366, or just slightly more than the same time last year. About 95% of refunds issued to date have been via direct deposit.
Tax season opened on January 21, 2015.
