The tax-filing deadline is Tuesday, and the IRS expects to receive more than 152 million individual tax returns this year.

The deadline is April 18 this year because the traditional April 15 due date fell on a Saturday and Washington, D.C., is observing Emancipation Day on Monday.

ADVERTISEMENT

As in recent years, most people will receive refunds and file their taxes online.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said earlier this month that this appears to be the “smoothest” filing season the agency has had since he took over the agency in late 2013.

Here are some key figures on the tax-filing season:



152 million returns

The IRS projects that it will receive about 152 million individual tax returns in 2017, including from people who request extensions. That’s about the same as the number of returns the agency received last year.

The IRS estimates that more than 13 million households will request extensions.

As of April 7, the agency has received about 104 million returns, which is down slightly from the same time last year. However, last year's filing season started a few days earlier.

The IRS said Thursday that it expected to receive about 18 million returns last week and will receive another 12 million returns this week.

About 95 million of the returns filed by April 7 were submitted electronically; more than half of the e-filed returns were prepared with the assistance of tax professionals.

More than $300 billion in refunds

The IRS estimates that more than 70 percent of taxpayers will receive refunds and that the agency will pay more than $300 billion in refunds this year.

The IRS had issued more than 80 million refunds as of April 7 that totaled about $229 billion.

The average refund amount as of April 7 was $2,851, and most people have received their refunds through direct deposit.

Last year, the IRS issued more than $317 billion in refunds.

As a result of legislation Congress passed in 2015, the IRS was required to hold refunds for people claiming the earned income tax credit and the additional child tax credit until Feb. 15. The IRS released about $51 billion in refunds claiming these credits, which benefit low- and middle-income families, after that date.



Telephone service level of 75 percent:

The IRS expects that during the 2017 filing season, about 75 percent of callers who want to speak with an IRS representative will be able to reach one.

During last year’s filing season, the level of service was 72 percent. During the 2015 filing season, it was 37 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Koskinen attributes the improvement in phone service to additional funding.

Congressional Republicans have disputed the argument that the poor customer service in 2015 was due to budget cuts. A December 2015 GAO report found that the IRS used less of its funds from user fees in 2015 to customer service than it did the previous year, and it instead used those fees for other purposes.

More than 276 million visits to the IRS website:

As of April 7, there have been more than 276 million visits to the IRS website since the start of the filing season and more than 320 million visits to the site since the start of the 2017 fiscal year in October.

Koskinen said at the National Press Club earlier this month that the IRS had the most-viewed government website in a recent 30-day period, beating the National Weather Service.

The IRS had to deactivate a tool in March that allows people to see the amount of taxes they owe, and it has already been used more than 500,000 times.

More than 600,000 potentially fraudulent tax returns: