There were 118,463,000 returns eceived this season through April 14, down 4.9 percent from 124,616,000 for the prior year's corresponding period. That was a decline from the April 7 report when the total was off 3.6 from the prior year.

Efiling receipts also fell behind with 108,559,000 accepted to date, down 4.3 percent from 113,402,000 a year earlier. The prior week's report  was down 3.3 percent from the similar period in 2016.

Tax professionals efiled 63,357,000 returns, down 4.5 percent from 66,361,000 for the prior year. That compared to -4.0 percent for the April 7 report. There were 45,202,000 self-prepared efiles, a drop of 3.9 percent from 47,041,000 for the same period in 2015. That was down 2.4 percent from the prior weekly report

The one set of numbers that continued to improve is refund statistics, the only statistics this season to grow from last year's results. The average refund of $2,815 was 2.1-percent higher than the prior-year's number. The government has handed out $246.4 billion in refunds, .4-percent more than a year ago.

However, in line with the reduced number of returns, the number of refunds, 75,240,000, was 1.5-percent lower than in the corresponding period in 2016.