The pro efiles pulled total efiles slightly above the 2020 totals for the first time this season. There were 113,617,000 efiles received for the period reported this year, up .4 percent from 113,110,000 ago. There has been one major development in the assisted preparation market this year—Intuit’s entry into the full assisted market this tax season and its hiring of thousands of preparers. However the company has not yet released any statistics about its returns business this season.

Total returns received remained 3.5 percent behind last year’s comparable period, falling to 121,168,000 from 125,474,000.

Tax professionals had submitted 61,282,000 efiles as of April 30, an increase of 7.6 percent over 56,965,000 ago. There were 52,335,000 self-prepared returns received, a drop of 6.8 percent from 81,485,000 -a year ago. In the reports for the period ended April 23, the tax professional total was up  5.4 percent over a year earlier.

The IRS has issued 81,485,000 refunds to date, off 5.8 percent from 86,471,000 a year ago.

Bob Scott

• Email

Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind