Each year, the IRS reports tax return filings and refunds on a weekly basis, starting at the end of January until the April 15 deadline. This year, in response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, the US Department of the Treasury (of which the IRS is a division) announced that the deadline to file (and more importantly, to pay) has been extended to July 15. In this report, we look at what happened in the 14th week of the 2020 tax filing season. As of May 1, 2020:

• The IRS had received 125.5 million tax returns and processed 113.1 million. The number of returns received and processed was down 11.0% and 16.1% year over year, respectively. The number of tax filings has dropped year over year as taxpayers take advantage of the 90-day filing extension granted by the IRS in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
• Of the returns filed already, 90.1% were filed electronically. Of those, 50.4% were prepared by tax professionals, and the remaining 49.6% were self-prepared.
• With IRS temporarily closing all Taxpayer Assistance Centers and suspending all in-person customer services nationwide, a high number of taxpayers used the IRS website for information: The site logged about 1.02 billion visits, up 129.7% year over year.
• A total of 93.2 million refunds had been issued as of May 1, totaling $252.22 billion and averaging $2,707 each. The number of refunds issued was down 7.2%, and the total amount refunded was down 8.1%, year over year. The average refund also declined by 0.9% year over year.
• Of those refunds issued, 83.8% were paid using direct deposit. The average direct deposit refund was $2,836, down 1.2% year over year.

The IRS data is shown in the table below.   The graph below shows total refunds increasing at a 1.2% CAGR during 2015–2019. [caption id="attachment_109541" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: IRS[/caption]   Economic Impact Payments The US Department of the Treasury released updated figures regarding Economic Impact Payments on May 8, 2020, announcing that over 130 million Americans had received stimulus checks worth over $200 billion in the program’s first four weeks (as of April 24, 2020). The US Department of the Treasury and the IRS had earlier announced that 88.1 million Americans had received Economic Impact Payments, totaling nearly $158 billion, in the program’s first three weeks (later revised to 89.5 million receiving nearly 160 billion). The federal agencies said that they plan to disburse payments to more than 150 million Americans, including those who do not typically file a tax return. The stimulus checks are part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act signed into law by President Trump, which is aimed at providing economic relief in response to the coronavirus crisis. Eligible taxpayers who filed a tax return for either 2018 or 2019 will receive a stimulus payment of up to $1,200 for individuals—or $2,400 for married couples—and up to $500 for each qualifying child under the age of 17. The CARES Act earmarked $300 billion in payments to individuals plus another $250 in supplemental unemployment benefits. The IRS has provided a state-by-state breakdown for Economic Impact Payments. The statistics showed that as of April 24, California had received the highest number of payments, with 13.6 million Californians receiving around $22.5 billion in total. Texas received the second-highest number of payments, with more than 10.7 million individuals receiving a total of almost $18.8 billion, followed by Florida, New York and Pennsylvania (shown in Figure 3). [caption id="attachment_109542" align="aligncenter" width="700"] *As of April 24, 2020
Source: IRS[/caption]