The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced that filings of tax returns in the United States 2014 individual income tax season have increased by comparison to filings for the same period in the previous year. As of February 7, the IRS had received 27.3m returns, up 2.5 percent compared to the same time in the previous year. Electronically filed returns account for almost 96 percent of that total. Taxpayers have e-filed more than 26m returns so far in the 2014 income tax season, including those filed from home computers and those filed by tax preparers, up almost 4 percent compared to the same time in the 2013 season. As of February 7, taxpayers had filed more than 13m returns from home computers, an increase of 14.7 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.
Refunds have also increased for 2014, with almost 19.5m refunds issued. This is an increase of more than 18 percent compared to the same time in the previous year. The average refund as of February 7 was USD3, 317, up 4.6 percent. Most refunds are directly deposited into taxpayer accounts, and just over 87 percent of all refunds issued have been returned that way so far. The new IRS Commissioner has also recently released a video message to US taxpayers, discussing how the IRS and its employees are approaching the 2014 tax season.
