Right before 2025 started, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) updated the average tax refund in 2024. However, it is not clear whether the 2025 Tax Season will bring higher or lower tax refunds. Of course, it will depend on many factors and it is not easy to predict.
What is certain, is the average tax refunds in 2024. As of December 27, 2024, the IRS made the filing season statistics public. By that date, a total of 163,473,000 tax returns were received. Actually, this figure is 0.9% higher than in 2023.
IRS & the average direct deposit refund amount
Good news for taxpayers because the average direct deposit refund amount was $3,170. That is 0.8% higher than in the previous year, which was $3,145. In total, the IRS deposited 301.195 billion in 2024.
Believe it or not, there were fewer direct deposits in 2024 than in 2023. The IRS claims that there were 95,001,000, down from 96,592,000 in 2023. But what about the average refund amount?
On average, it is lower than in 2023 too. The 2024 average refund amount was $3,138, down from $3,167. Thus, it was approximately 0.8% lower in 2024.
IRS statistics unveils 2 interesting facts
As a matter of fact, e-filing tax returns received from tax professionals has slightly increased by 0.7%. In 2024, the total of tax returns submitted by tax professionals was 85,642,000.
This figure was approximately 85,049,000 in 2023. Despite the fact that you may think that self-prepared tax return numbers decreased in 2024, they also went up. The reason is simple, there were more filers than in 2023.
Nevertheless, the boost in self-prepared e-filing returns received by the IRS is higher. In 2024, the increase was 1.6%, which is significant since there was a new Direct File pilot in progress.
If you have just filed your 2024 tax return, you can expect your tax refund within 21 days. Those who have claimed tax credits like the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) or the ACTC (Additional Child Tax Credit) may get it by March 3.
