IRS 2024 Tax Filing Season; Expands Services on Phones, In-Person and Online

The IRS highlighted a variety of improvements that expanded service for millions of taxpayers during the 2024 filing season. (IR 2024-109, 4/15/2024)

“Taxpayers continued to see major improvements from the IRS during the 2024 tax season,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.

Since the start of the January tax season, the IRS has delivered more than $200 billion in refunds through early April. The average refund was $3,011, a 4.6% increase from last April’s average of $2,878.

Here are major filing season numbers in 10 key areas. These numbers, generally from late March and early April, reflect the historic 2024 tax season taking place at the IRS:

• Improved phone service. With the addition of 5,000 new telephone assistors, the IRS level of service on its main phone lines reached more than 88%. That’s above the 84% level seen last year and more than a five-fold increase from the phone service levels seen during the pandemic era period, when the level of service was at just 15% in 2022.

• More calls answered. The IRS answered more calls on live assistor lines this year, a 16.8% increase from 2023. IRS assistors handled 7,608,000 calls, up from 6,513,000 the year before. IRS automated lines handled another approximately 7 million calls, 280,000 more than the previous year.

• Faster response times. Taxpayers waited just over three minutes for help on the IRS main phone lines. This is down from four minutes in 2023 and 28 minutes in filing season 2022.

• More callback options. The IRS offered call back for over 4 million taxpayers this tax season, more than double the 1.8 million calls in 2023.

• More in-person help. The IRS helped 170,000 more taxpayers in-person this filing season than in 2023. IRS employees at Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs) served 648,000 taxpayers this year, up from 474,000 in 2023, a 37% increase.

• Expanded in-person hours. The IRS added extended hours at 242 TAC locations across the nation, IRS also offered taxpayer assistance on Saturdays in more than 70 locations.

• Additional free help at volunteer sites. Volunteer sites increase to more than 2.3 million returns this tax season, up 200,000 from last year.

• More taxpayers file for free. There were over 450,000 more returns filed between volunteer sites, Direct File and Free File. The new Direct File pilot, offered on a limited basis in 12 states, generated more than 60,000 tax returns after opening widely in mid-March.
• Higher usage of IRS.gov. The IRS.gov website had nearly 500 million visits, an 18% increase. And “Where’s My Refund?” accounted for more than 275 million of those visits, up 62 million from 2023 representing a 29% increase.

• More chatbot use. The IRS saw more use of its virtual assistant tool on key IRS.gov pages. There were 832,000 uses this filing season, up nearly 150% from 330,000 uses in 2023.

For last minute help taxpayers can visit the special free help page on IRS.gov.

There are several options for taxpayers to get extensions through October 15, 2024.

Taxpayers in Maine and Massachusetts have until April 17 to file and pay taxes due this year.