With More Than 25% Of Expected Tax Returns Filed, Refunds Still Unremarkable

We’re coming down to the home stretch for tax season, which opened on Jan. 23, 2023, and will run until Apr. 18, 2023.

IRS numbers continue to indicate that taxpayers are getting their returns in and processed more quickly than they did last year. The most recent data available compares the filing weeks ending Feb. 25, 2022, and Feb. 24, 2023, and continues to show an uptick in filing numbers.

The IRS has now received 45,983,000 individual income tax returns in 2023, compared with 45,413,000 in 2022. That’s a boost of 1.3%, a continued slowdown as compared to previous weeks, but still a positive rate. It also represents over a quarter of expected tax returns for 2023—the IRS expects to receive about 168 million tax returns this season.

The IRS is also continuing to process individual income tax returns at a faster pace than last year. The data shows that the IRS processed 45,722,000 individual income tax returns in 2023, compared to 43,818,000 in the same period in 2022. That’s an improvement of 4.3% over the same period last year.

Web visits to IRS.gov remain down, and are dropping at an even faster pace in 2023—16.5% less than the same period in 2022. As I noted before, it’s difficult to say why that might be, but is likely linked to a higher volume last year due to a combination of complicated rules governing the expanded child tax credits and taxpayers checking on Recovery Rebate Credits on 2021 tax returns filed in 2022.

The downturn in web visits may also be linked to tax refunds. Taxpayers aren’t seeing the same numbers in 2023 as they did in 2022, which may provide less of an incentive to check the status on the IRS website.

The IRS has issued 35,142,000 tax refunds so far in 2023 compared to 29,723,000, an increase of 18.2%. While the number of refunds issued has consistently been higher than in 2022—hitting double digit growth—the average tax refund is down: $3,079 per taxpayer compared to $3,473 in 2022, a decrease of 11.3%. The average direct deposit tax refunds are also down: $3,170 per taxpayer compared to $3,529 in 2022, a dip of 10.2%.

Tax refund amounts can vary as the season rolls on. Those amounts tend to pick up in late February since the IRS begins issuing refunds to taxpayers who claim the earned-income tax credit (EITC) and the additional child tax credit (ACTC) after Feb. 15, 2023. We’re not seeing that trend to date, but it may be that we’re simply getting back to normal (whatever that means)—remember that last year’s data included tax breaks related to the pandemic. The average tax refund overall last year was almost $3,300, or 14% higher than in 2021.

With just a few weeks to go in the season, we’ll continue to track the numbers at Forbes.