It’s only been a few weeks since Tax Season 2018 has kicked off, but that hasn’t stopped the IRS from reporting preliminary figures of how the current tax season is shaping up against 2017.
In the IRS’s most recent round of filing season statistics, they compare filing season statistics from February 9, 2018, to February 10, 2017. We’ve collected a few of the highlights and compiled an infographic to display the figures.
The IRS cautions that while calendar year-to-year comparisons are difficult at this early point in the season (as six additional days of tax return processing are included in the 2017 totals) when comparing the same number of days of filing, IRS is seeing an increase in returns received and accepted over 2017.
With that in consideration, the average refund for 2018 is $77 higher, and almost all the other totals are slightly lower. If you’re interested in all the statistics, you can find more figures for the week ending February 9, 2018, on the IRS website directly.
It’s difficult to find a definitive answer regarding how many tax filers receive a tax refund. However, in February 2015 the IRS stated in a news release dated that out of nearly 50 million tax returns, almost 83 percent of those returns resulted in refunds. The average refund was $3,120.