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.Efiles for the 57 days ended April 9 totaled 95,562,000, compared to 96,798,000 for the 75 days ended April 10, 2020. There were 100,915,000 total returns as of the most recent report, a decline of 3 percent from 103,986,000 a year earlier.
For the first time, efiles from tax professionals had greater improvement than the self-prepared category. There were 49,947,000 returns from paid preparers as of April 9, off 1.1 percent from 50,511,000 in last year’s corresponding period
Self-prepared returns reached 45,615,000, a drop of 1.5 percent from 46,287,000.
The Internal Revenue Service has issued 67,727,000 refunds for the season to date, 12.3-percent behind 77,252,000 received through April 10, last year.
