In three of four major reporting categories, the percentage decrease from a year ago was worst of this tax season. The exception was the 70,064,000 efiled by tax professionals, down 5.3 percent from 66,361,000 was only the third worst for the season to date. That category had been off 9.3 percent and 7.3 percent in the first and second weekly reports for the 2016 tax season respectively.

Total returns received fell by 5.8 percent 124,616,000 from 132,268,000 while total returns processed dropped 4.9 percent to 119,923,000 from 126,121,000.

The most surprising change was the drop in self-prepared efiled returns, which fell to 47,041,000 from 48,702,000. This was the first time the totals in this category went into the negative area. The worst performance in the self-prepared area before this was for the first weekly report this season for the period ended February 5 when the self-prepared totals were 2.2-percent ahead of the period ended February 6, 2015.

While the pace had been falling for self-prepared efiles for the last three weeks, the report for the period ended April 8 had showed 41,725,000 returns, a 2.3-percent improvement over 40,783,000 a year earlier.

Bob Scott

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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