The pace of the filing of tax returns keeps approaching the totals in last year’s tax season. But the time for the totals to equal last year looks farther out than it did two weeks ago, although efiles for the shorter period this year are down by only 1.3 percent from a year ago's longer tax season.

The number of returns received by the Internal Revenue Service for the 50 filing days ended April 2 reached 93,203,000, down 4.3 percent from the 97,366,000 received during the 60 days ended April 3, 2020. But instead of closing the gap on last year after pulling within .4 percent a week ago, the number of self-prepared returns fell back.

An 8-percent drop in revenue from its professional services organization revenues contributed a a 1-percent decline in revenue for Paychex for the third quarter ended February 28. Meanwhile, payroll services revenue was virtually unchanged.