The government shutdown impacted the start of the current tax season as every statistic released by the Internal Revenue Service for the first time for 2018 was down. But this year, the key metric may be the average refund as a measure of the impact of the new tax law.Average refunds were $1,865 for the week ended February 1, down 8.3 percent from an average of $2,035 for the period ending Feb 2, 2018. Beyond that the number of returns received, process and the number of refunds issued were all down by double digits over 2018’s comparable period.
For the season to date, the IRS has received 16,035,000 returns, a drop of 12.4 percent from 18,302,000, a year earlier. The number of returns processed fell by 25.8 percent to 13,306,000 from 17,931,000.
Efiling receipts fell to 15,222,000 through February 1, off 13.1 percent, from 17,518,000 for last year through February 2. Efiles from tax professionals dropped 19.3 percent to 5,440,000 from 6,744,000. Self-prepared returns reached 9,782,000, a decrease of 9.2 percent from 10,774,000.
