IRS getting millions of tax returns a day

The Internal Revenue Service is receiving millions of tax returns a day with the filing deadline for taxpayers less than a week away.

The agency expects 150 million returns this season, and over 100 million have already been filed. Thirteen million will be filed as extensions.

“The filing season has gone really very smoothly,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told reporters Tuesday.

As of April 8, the IRS has paid almost 82 million individual refunds totaling about $229 billion. The number and dollar amount of refunds are down slightly from the same period last year. The average refund increased from $2,776 to $2,798.

{mosads}Over 90 percent of individuals have filed electronically so far, but the percentage of electronic returns is expected to fall slightly. Many of the returns received in the last few days before the deadline, and many of the returns filed after receiving extensions, will be filed by paper, Koskinen said.

The IRS head said customer service improved this year thanks to a $290 million funding increase from Congress.

“Thus far, thanks to the additional funding we got from Congress, the taxpayer service levels have been much better in this filing season than they were last year because we were able to hire more people,” he said.

Koskinen said last month that the service level on the IRS’s toll-free help lines will be about 65 percent for the filing season and about 47 percent for the whole year due to seasonal employees. Last year, the service level was about 38 percent.

Identity theft has also been a top concern for the IRS. Koskinen said fraud doesn’t increase in the weeks before the deadline.

“For a lot of people, if they were going to be victims, they already would’ve known about it,” he said.

Last year, the IRS stopped over 4 million suspicious returns and about 1.5 million fraudulent returns. When the IRS suspects a false return, the agency typically sends a letter to confirm the taxpayer’s identity, Koskinen said.

Total net tax collections, which includes taxes from both individuals and businesses, took a hit during the recession but have since been increasing. They fell in fiscal 2009 and 2010 and have subsequently risen, according to IRS data. After the decline, net tax collections did not reach 2008 levels again until fiscal 2013.

In fiscal 2015, which ended Sept. 30, the IRS collected about $3.3 trillion in gross taxes and issued about $403 billion in refunds, resulting in total net collections of about $2.9 trillion, the IRS said.

This year’s tax deadline in most states is April 18 because Washington, D.C., is observing Emancipation Day on Friday, April 15. In Maine and Massachusetts, taxpayers have until April 19 because Patriots’ Day will be observed on Monday in those states.