By Matt Durr
mlive.com
(TNS)
A quick glance at the latest 2025 tax refund numbers may be cause for concern for those who haven’t filed yet, but the Internal Revenue Service says there’s a good reason why certain numbers are down.
Data released by the IRS last week—ending on Feb. 14—shows the average refund in 2025 is down nearly 33% when compared to the same time frame in 2024. 2025 returns are averaging $2,169, a significant decline from the 2024 average of $3,207. The total number of refunds distributed and the averages for the number of direct deposits and direct deposit refund totals are also down more than 30%.
The IRS has issued roughly 13.6 million refunds so far this year, down from 20.8 million issued by this time last year.
Those numbers are expected to balance out when the next data set is released later this week as a certain demographic of taxpayers will soon be able to receive their refund.
Taxpayers who have already filed and claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) cannot receive their tax refunds until mid-February. As part of the PATH Act, the IRS cannot issue refunds to anyone who claims those credits until the middle of this month. Because reporting cutoffs for the latest data set came before that deadline hit, tax refunds for those claiming the credits had not been issued.
Taxpayers who claimed the credits should have already begun receiving their refunds and those numbers are expected to be included in the next data report.
In 2024, some taxpayers who claimed the credits had already begun receiving their checks at this time last year, leading to the discrepancy in the year-over-year comparison.
Aside from the huge difference in refund amounts, the latest data shows the taxpayers are taking a bit longer to file this year. So far this year, the IRS has received 33 million returns and processed 32.8 million of them. That’s down by about 5% compared to this time last year.
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©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit mlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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