All in all, it was a pretty uneventful tax filing season.
The relatively smooth 2014 filings probably are due in large part because we taxpayers didn't have to deal with last-minute changes by Congress in tax laws.
That's also probably why the number of returns that the Internal Revenue Service reported receiving a few days after the April 15 deadline, was slightly ahead of last year's filing pace.
IRS numbers crunchers report that as of April 18 the agency had received more than 131 million returns. That's 0.7 percent more than at that time last year.
The increase that the IRS really likes seeing, however, is in the e-filing category. Overall, almost 116 million 1040 forms arrived electronically.
That's just more than 88 percent of filings. It's also an increase in 2014 of 2.9 percent over the e-filing figures at the same point in the 2013 filing season.
The big jump, however, comes in the self-prepared and electronically filed category. The IRS says nearly 46 million of us did our returns ourselves and then hit "send" on our computer keyboards. That's a 6.5 percent increase.
It was a tough call, but this week's By the Numbers honor goes to the almost 46 million returns that so far have been electronically filed directly by John and Jane Taxpayers.
For all you digits geeks, here are the rest of the IRS' cumulative tax-filing stats comparing weeks ending April 19, 2013, and April 18, 2014:
|
Individual Income |
2013 |
2014 |
Percent Change |
| Total Receipts | 130,203,000 | 131,170,000 | 0.7 |
| Total Processed | 120,737,000 | 125,604,000 | 4.0 |
| E-filing Receipts | |||
| Total | 112,665,000 | 115,969,000 | 2.9 |
| Tax Professionals | 69,474,000 | 69,992,000 | 0.7 |
| Self-prepared | 43,191,000 | 45,977,000 | 6.5 |
| Total Refunds | |||
| Number | 93,839,000 | 94,809,000 | 1.0 |
| Amount | $249.489 billion | $254.702 billion | 2.1 |
| Average Refund | $2,659 | $2,686 | 1.0 |
| Direct Deposit Refunds | |||
| Number | 76,135,000 | 76,714,000 | 0.8 |
| Amount | $217.189 billion | $217.657 billion | 0.2 |
| Average Refund | $2,853 | $2,837 | -0.5 |
You also might find these items of interest:
