US Taxpayers E-File In Record Numbers

by Leroy Baker, Tax-News.com, New York

17 May 2007

The recently completed 2007 tax filing season saw over 76 million electronically-filed individual tax returns and more than 140 million visits to the Internal Revenue Service website, the IRS announced Tuesday.

“E-file and our other electronic services helped us deliver a strong filing season for the nation’s taxpayers,” stated IRS Acting Commissioner Kevin M. Brown. “Again this year, millions of additional taxpayers gave up paper tax returns to file electronically. E-file and IRS.gov were among several factors that helped us overcome one of the most challenging filing seasons ever for the IRS.”

This year’s tax season saw a surge in electronic filing among last-minute filers, a group that has traditionally sent in paper returns. During the week that included this year’s tax-filing deadline (April 14 to 20) alone, the number of electronically-filed returns received by the IRS jumped 35% over the same week last year, even though the overall number of returns (paper and electronic) received during the same week only rose 12%.

New records were also set for the number of returns e-filed by home computer users, the number of balance-due returns filed electronically and the number and amount of direct-deposit refunds.

The over 76.7 million e-filed returns accepted through May 4 topped the more than 73.2 million electronically-filed returns received for all of 2006. It also showed an 8.9% increase over last year at this time, with most of the increase coming in March and April. Based on current trends, the agency expects around 58% of all returns to be e-filed this year. Taxpayers who filed for extensions can use e-file until Oct. 15.

A record 22 million taxpayers e-filed from a home computer, up 11% over the same time last year and eclipsing 2006’s year-long total of 20.3 million.

This filing season, visits to IRS.gov, the agency’s website, climbed almost 10% to more than 140 million.

The average refund this year was $2,255, a 2.5% increase over last year at this time. More than 59 million refunds, a new record, were deposited directly into savings, checking and brokerage accounts, representing more than 61% of all refunds issued. Those who choose direct deposit get their refunds at least a week sooner. Nearly $158 billion have been directly deposited so far this year, an 11% jump over last year at this time. This surpasses the 2006 year-end total of $149.2 billion.

The number of balance-due returns filed electronically surged 14.2% to a record 9.4 million. For all of last year, almost 8.9 million balance-due returns were filed electronically.

Recommended