Final tally of tax season is one for record books
Thousands of area residents gave a collective sigh of relief after the annual federal income tax filing deadline passed with their returns safely on their way to the Internal Revenue Service. But what were the final figures?
“This tax season was one for the record books,’ William Cressman, media relations specialist with the IRS in Philadelphia, said.
For example, Fayette County residents have or will get about $81 million in refunds. That follows the national average of about $1,937 per refund, Cressman said. Greene County residents will get about $22 million and Washington County residents about $111 million.
In terms of returns filed, Cressman said the IRS projected 71,575 returns from Fayette County. As of April 20, 63,763 had been filed with 41,860 of those already having received refunds.
More people in Fayette used electronic means to file their return – a total of 22,130.
In Greene County of the 19,584 expected returns, 17,447 had been filed. About 6,000 of those were filed electronically.
And in Washington County, of 97,699 returns expected, 87,035 had been filed with about 30,200 of those coming electronically.
Nationally, some 45.8 million taxpayers used electronic filing, breaking last year’s record of 40.2 million.
Nearly 105,000 electronic return originators participated, which was up from 90,000 last year.
People filed more than 9.1 million returns from their home computers, a 34 percent increase over the total for all of last year.
Cressman said the IRS has processed more than 77 million refunds, worth nearly $150 billion.
And nearly 36.5 million taxpayers have used direct deposit for their refunds, surpassing the almost 34 million for all of 2001, he added.
In all, workers at IRS Centers had processed more than 88.5 million returns as of April 19, the earliest that this total has been reached.
“The IRS site at www.irs.gov remains one of the most used sites during the tax season, with 1.97 billion hits, a 28 percent increase from last year. The 78 million hits on April 15 set a new daily record for the site. Through March, the number of files downloaded topped 212 million, a 46 percent increase over the same period last year,’ Cressman said.
But what about next year?
“Well, people should certainly make sure they file away a copy of their return from this year. They should also take a good look at it, especially the things they took as deductions. They should start putting away receipts for their things now as well as other documents they will need next year,’ he said.
Cressman suggested keeping them filed in a “tax folder.
“They may also want to consider the things that will change. There are many changes that changed in the tax codes effective in January. They may be entitled to a different kind of tax break that is new this year.
“All that information is available on our Web site at www.irs.gov and in some of our tax publications,’ Cressman said.