IRS data from the seventh week of the tax filing season—the week ending March 14, 2025—indicates that taxpayers are not excited about filing this tax season. Numbers for tax filing and processing of tax returns dipped again, a trend that hasn’t changed since the season opened on January 27, 2025.
Filing and Processing Dips
Early filing data reflects a continued downturn in tax returns received compared to the prior year. The data shows that the IRS received 70,370,000 individual income tax returns as of March 14, 2025, compared to 71,587,000 as of March 15, 2024. The dip is 1.7%, with taxpayers filing more than one million fewer individual tax returns to date in 2025 as compared to 2024.
For comparison, the IRS had received 71,861,000 individual income tax returns by this time in 2023, 72,223,000 by this time in 2022, and 76,097,000 by this time in 2021.
The data shows that the IRS has processed 69,605,000 individual income tax returns as of March 14, 2025, compared to 70,569,000 individual income tax returns as of March 15, 2024. That’s a decrease of 1.4%.
Most of those returns were e-filed. In 2025, the IRS received 68,454,000 e-filed returns, compared to 69,543,000 in 2024. That’s a drop of 1.6%.
Most tax professionals will e-file your return, suggesting it’s more secure and more likely to be accurate. As National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins put it when recommending e-filing: “Paper is the IRS’ kryptonite.”
The number of e-filed returns prepared by professionals was nearly neck and neck with the number of e-filed returns that was self-prepared. The IRS received 34,467,000 individual income returns e-filed by tax professionals and 34,880,000 self prepared e-filed returns. That’s consistent with predictions—in January, the IRS noted that it expected more than half of all tax returns to be filed this year with the help of a tax professional.
Web Visits
Web visits to IRS.gov were also sharply down, dropping 44.6% compared to 2024. There have been 228,126,000 visits to the website as of March 14, 2025, compared to 411,961,000 visits by March 15, 2024.
The downturn in web visits may reflect the fact that the website has not been regularly updated—there have been only a dozen or so press releases posted since the season opened.
Taxpayers seeking the status of their tax refund may click over to the website to check the status of their tax refunds using the Where’s My Refund tool?. The IRS says that Where’s My Refund? remains the best way to check the status of a refund. It provides taxpayers with three key pieces of information: receipt of your federal tax return, approval of your tax refund, and issuing date of your approved tax refund.
Refund status information is typically available within 24 hours after the IRS receives your e-filed tax return for the current tax year, three to four days after receipt of your e-filed tax return or four weeks after mailing your paper return. The IRS only updates the tool once a day, usually overnight.
Additionally, taxpayers and tax professionals have expressed concerns about the security of their data, including making online queries on their tax accounts, with some suggesting that they may pause visits until they receive confirmation that their data is safe.
Tax Refunds
The data points in the tax season filing statistics that are seeing upticks are related to tax refunds.
The total number of tax refunds edged up to 49,828,000 in 2025, compared to 49,145,000 in the same period last year, an increase of 1.4%.
The average tax refund is also up: $3,271 per taxpayer as of March 14, 2025, compared to $3,109 as of March 15, 2024, a boost of 5.2%. The average refund issued by direct deposit increased to $3,330 in 2025 compared to $3,177 for the same time period last year.
The law requires the IRS to hold refunds tied to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the ACTC until mid-February. The rule applies to the entire refund, even the portion not associated with the EITC and ACTC. That means if you qualify for the refundable credit, you’ll have to wait until the IRS can release it. As a result, early EITC/ACTC filers should have begun to see tax refunds around March 3, 2025.
The IRS expects more than 140 million individual tax returns for tax year 2024 to be filed ahead of the April 15 federal deadline—we have just under a month to go. Check back for more details as the season rolls on.
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