Americans cannot file their income tax fast enough – but they must welcome their side in their 2020 repayments

It seems like people are not able to file their 2020 tax returns fast enough.

© MarketWatch Photo Illustration / iStockphoto
Americans are serious about getting a tax refund or any stimulus check money they missed last year.

People are filing their taxes so far this year at an astonishing rate, emphasizing how serious Americans are about getting any tax refund or any stimulus check money they missed last year. The IRS accepted and processed tax returns from 2020 slightly later than usual, as its systems needed a breather after distributing a second round of stimulus checks at the end of December.

However, there is bad news that many Americans need to be prepared for when they finally get their repayment: the average repayment so far is $ 2,880, significantly less than the average repayment of $ 3,125 on about the same calendar date last year. The decline follows a year in which unemployment soared due to COVID-19 related restrictions on businesses and shelter orders.

New IRS statistics released on Thursday show that people are filing their individual tax returns at a much faster rate than they were earlier in the tax season. As of Feb. 19, just eight full days into the 2021 filing season, the IRS received 34.69 million individual returns, agency statistics show.

That is 30.5% less revenue than the 49.8 million received on February 21 last year – but it was 26 days into the 2020 submission season and weeks before confirmation that the coronavirus had taken hold in the US.

Simple math actually indicates that the volume of individual returns is higher this year.

Simple math indicates that the volume of individual returns is higher this year. –

If the nearly 34.7 million returns so far this year are divided by eight submission days, the result is 4.3 million returns per day. The 49.8 million returns submitted last year, divided by 26 submission days, are 1.91 million returns per day.

Put another way: the IRS received about 7% more individual returns than the agency received on February 7 last year, which was 12 days in the 2019 tax return filing season.

At the moment, Americans face a deadline of April 15 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 their returns. to submit, but not to pay. money they owe.

The repayments currently do not apply to repayments that include the payments for the earnings-income tax credit, a powerful anti-poverty tax credit aimed at low- and moderate-income families. Repayments containing the EITC and the additional child tax credit will begin to reach bank accounts during the first week of March, according to the IRS.

However, it is noteworthy that when the average 2021 refunds eight days in this tax filing season are compared to the average refunds from February 7, 12 days in the previous year’s filing season, the refund amount is actually higher. Last year, the average repayment from $ 1295 during the filing season was $ 1,952. So far this year, the average repayment value is $ 2,880. In each case, the average does not include money from the EITC or the ACTC.

After the Internal Revenue Service began accepting tax returns on Friday, February 12, the agency took in 55 million returns in its first weekend alone, Treasury Commissioner Charles Rettig said this week. These 55 million tax returns were not just individual tax returns. IRS spokesman Anthony Burke also included business returns and a variety of other returns.