I feel that I must present this blog with an initial warning: there is nothing earthshattering included herein.
In fact, I’ll even tag that with a second warning: there is a lot of nerdy information included. But hey, I find it pretty interesting. With that being said, this all refers to an article that reports on some of the numbers behind the current tax season until early April. Much of the point of the reporting was comparing 2024 numbers to 2023’s, and really, there aren’t a whole lot of differences. The biggest difference was in the number of visits to the IRS.gov website, which was up 19% this year as compared to 2023. Of course, it isn’t super surprising that the amount of people gaining confidence in using the interest is on the rise. The fact that it increased by such a large percentage, however, is still a bit jarring. Like has internet usage really increased by 1/5 in the last year? Hopefully a takeaway from this will be the IRS further commits itself to its digital presence and what taxpayers and tax preparers can do online. This has definitely been an area where the agency has lagged. And even if in the other numbers there aren’t a whole lot of takeaways, I think it’s worth still reminding ourselves about how big these numbers are. Starting right at the top, at the time of these numbers there had already been 80 million returns processed. Take a moment to think about just how big that number is and how much work the IRS is really required to do. And that’s before the end-of-season push followed by everyone who gets an extension. Of those returns, about 55 million of them received a refund. So it is probably also worth pointing out that even though the idea of paying taxes weighs on the mind of many, most people who file taxes actually get some money back. And now when you add all those refunds together, we come to the biggest number that is difficult to fully appreciate. The total amount refunded at this point was $169,411,000,000. Look at how many zeroes that is. That means this amount is in the billions. And not just a few billions, but almost 170 of them. So when one tries to contact the IRS and is sometimes amazed at how slow (or impossible) that can feel like … well, the agency should still do better and people deserve it to better, but at least when looking at some of these numbers, maybe we can understand a little more. Warmly, Josh Bousquet Connect to Us ~ Facebook ~ Twitter To ensure we don't make the folks at the IRS ornery, we inform you that any U.S. federal tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein.
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