WASHINGTON - Individual taxpayers e-filed almost 90 million tax returns during 2008, an increase of more than 12 percent over the prior year. Of the 155 million tax returns filed, about 58 percent were filed electronically.

“More people with home computers and businesses embraced electronic filing this year," said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “Every year, more people realize that electronic filing is the safe, accurate way for taxpayers to complete their taxes and get faster refunds.”

Tax Returns Filed by Individuals

While the total number of returns has increased by 23 percent during the past decade, the number filed electronically has increased by 206 percent.

 

Year	Total Returns	e-Filed Returns	Percent of total e-filed
1999	125,900,000	29,349,000	23.31%
2000	128,430,000	35,412,000	27.57%
2001	130,965,000	40,244,000	30.73%
2002	131,728,000	46,892,000	35.60%
2003	131,557,000	52,944,000	40.24%
2004	132,200,000	61,507,000	46.53%
2005	133,933,000	68,476,000	51.13%
2006	136,071,000	73,255,000	53.84%
2007	140,188,000	79,979,000	57.05%
2008	155,490,000	89,886,000	57.80%

This year, almost 27 million returns were filed by individuals from their home computers, up from 22.6 million last year ― a 19 percent increase. Filings from home computers accounted for 30 percent of all returns e-filed by individuals. Even though individual tax filings were spurred to unprecedented levels by the economic stimulus payments, the percentage of those e-filed increased to 58 percent.

Free File

During 2008, taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of $54,000 or less, or about 70 percent of individual taxpayers, had the option of choosing to e-file for free through
IRS Free File, a partnership between the IRS and some software manufacturers. Almost 4.8 million tax returns were filed through Free File, an increase of 24 percent over last year’s total of almost 3.9 million returns.

Refunds: Direct Deposit and IRS.gov Set Records

More taxpayers chose to receive their refunds through direct deposit during 2008.  The agency made 66 million direct deposit payments in 2008, up 8 percent from 61 million payments at the same time in 2007.

Overall, the IRS issued 107 million tax refund payments in 2008, up almost 2 percent from 105 million refund payments for the same time in 2007. As of October 31, the average refund for 2008 was $2,371, up 4 percent from $2,280 at the same time in 2007.

IRS.gov

The IRS Internet site, IRS.gov, continues to be a convenient source of federal tax information that consumers can trust, and the site’s popularity continues to increase. As of October 18, IRS.gov had been visited 326,522,488 times.

Tax Returns e-Filed by Businesses

Businesses also broke e-file records during 2008 by filing almost 2 million corporate and partnership income tax returns, an increase of more than 50 percent over the prior year. Partnership e-filings saw the steepest increase. Large partnerships, those with more than 100 partners, e-filed more than 27,000 returns during 2008, up 156 percent compared to the prior year’s total.

Corporations and partnerships e-filed 1,944,421 tax returns during 2008, up 50 percent from last year’s total of 1,294,475.  The total number for e-filed returns that were not filed by individuals was 3,365,757, up 65 percent from last year’s total of 2,172,753. This number includes forms e-filed by exempt organizations.

Filing Season Statistics

 

2008 FILING SEASON STATISTICS
Cumulative through the weeks ending 11/02/07 and 10/31/08
Individual Income Tax Returns	2007		2008		% Change
Total Receipts	139,272,000		155,490,000		11.6
Total Processed	138,647,000		154,241,000		11.3
E-filing Receipts:
TOTAL	79,979,000		89,886,000		12.4
Tax Professionals	57,420,000		62,959,000		9.6
Self-prepared	22,559,000		26,927,000		19.4
Free File	3,853,813		4,774,894		23.9
Web Usage:
Visits to IRS.gov	198,049,375		329,367,883		19.7
Total Refunds:
Number	105,147,000		106,780,000		1.6
Amount ($Bil)	242.805		256.264		5.5
Average refund	$2,309		$2,400		3.9
Direct Deposit Refunds:
Number	61,444,000		66,338,000		8.0
Amount ($Bil)	165.759		180.498		8.9
Average refund	$2,698		$2,721		0.9