It seems that people cannot file their 2020 tax returns quickly enough.
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Americans take tax refunds or any stimulus checks they missed last year seriously.
People are declaring their taxes at an accelerated pace so far this year, underscoring how serious Americans are about getting any tax refunds due or any stimulus check money they lost last year. The IRS started accepting and processing tax returns for 2020 a little later than normal, because its systems needed a break after distributing a second round of stimulus checks in late December.
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However, there is some bad news that many Americans must be prepared for when they finally receive the refund: the average refund so far is $ 2,880, significantly less than the average refund of $ 3,125 at approximately the same date last year. The decrease comes after a year in which unemployment soared due to restrictions related to COVID-19 on business and shelter requests at the site.
New IRS statistics released Thursday show that people are submitting their individual tax returns at a much faster rate than at the beginning of last year’s tax season. As of February 19, just eight full days into the 2021 filing season, the IRS had received 34.69 million individual returns, the agency’s statistics show.
This represents 30.5% less returns than the 49.8 million received as of February 21 last year – but that was 26 days after the start of the 2020 archiving season and weeks before confirmation that the coronavirus had established itself. In the USA
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Simple math, in fact, suggests that the volume of individual returns has increased this year.
Simple math suggests that the volume of individual returns has increased this year. –
By dividing the nearly 34.7 million returns so far this year by eight days of filing, the result is 4.3 million returns filed per day. The 49.8 million returns filed last year, divided by 26 days of filing, amount to 1.91 million returns per day.
In other words: the IRS received approximately 21% more individual filings than the agency received last year through February 7, which was 12 days after the 2019 tax reporting season began.
At the moment, Americans face an April 15 deadline to file and pay their taxes (June 15 in Texas and Okahoma), unless they get an extension until October 15, which gives them more time to file the return, but not to pay. money they owe.
Refunds as of now do not include refunds that include payments of Earned Income Tax Credit, a powerful anti-poverty tax credit aimed at low and moderate income families. Refunds that incorporate the EITC and the additional child tax credit will begin to reach bank accounts during the first week of March, according to the IRS.
It is important to note, however, that when comparing the average refund of 2021 eight days in this tax filing season with the average refund from February 7, 12 days after last year’s filing season, the values of reimbursement are really high. Last year, the average refund reached $ 1,952 at the 12-day mark in the filing season. This year, the average repayment amount is $ 2,880. In each case, the average does not incorporate EITC or ACTC money.
After the IRS started accepting tax returns on Friday, February 12, the agency obtained 55 million returns in the first weekend alone, said Charles Rettig, Treasury Department commissioner, this week. These 55 million tax returns were not just individual tax returns. They also included business statements and a variety of other statements, said IRS spokesman Anthony Burke.
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