The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) Releases Interim Results of Report on 2017 Tax Filing Season.

The final report with recommendations to the IRS will be released in September.

In preparation for the 2017 Filing Season, the IRS made significant changes to its processes and procedures to address legislative requirements, including the program and integrity provisions of the Protecting Americans From Tax Hikes Act of 2015. The IRS began accepting and processing individual tax returns on January 23, 2017, as scheduled.

As of March 3, 2017, the IRS received approximately 61 million tax returns – 57.4 million (94 percent) were electronically filed (e filed) and 3.6 million (6 percent) were filed on paper. The IRS has issued 49.4 million refunds totaling more than $148.8 billion. In addition, as of March 2, 2017, the IRS processed 1.7 million tax returns that reported nearly $6.4 billion in Premium Tax Credits that were either received in advance or claimed at the time of filing.

Approximately 1.8 million taxpayers reported shared responsibility payments for a decrease of 33.3 percent from the prior year. However, the amount of shared responsibility payments reported increased 20 percent over the prior year to $1.2 billion. It should be noted the amount of the shared responsibility payment increases each year.

The IRS continues to expand its efforts to detect tax refund fraud. As of March 4, 2017, the IRS reports that it identified 30,674 tax returns with $961 million claimed in fraudulent refunds and prevented the issuance of $918.6 million (95.6 percent) in fraudulent refunds.

In addition, the IRS reports that expanded use of controls to identify fraudulent refund claims before they are accepted into the processing system has identified approximately 10,954 fraudulent e-filed tax returns as of February 28, 2017, and 2,317 paper-filed tax returns as of March 16, 2017. The IRS also identified and confirmed 14,068 fraudulent tax returns involving identity theft as of March 2, 2017, and identified 17,227 prisoner tax returns for screening as of March 4, 2017.

The IRS continues to offer more self assistance options that taxpayers can access 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including its IRS2Go app; YouTube channels; interactive self-help tools on IRS.gov; and Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook accounts. In addition, as of March 2, 2017, approximately 27.4 million total attempts and 19 million net attempts were made by taxpayers to contact the IRS by calling the various customer service toll-free telephone assistance lines. The IRS reports that approximately 10.4 million calls were answered with automation. IRS assistors have answered nearly 4.7 million calls and provided a 76.2 percent Level of Service with a 7.1 minute Average Speed of Answer.

Finally, during Fiscal Year 2017, the IRS plans to assist approximately 3.4 million taxpayers through face to face contact at the Taxpayer Assistance Centers, which is a 23.6 percent decrease from Fiscal Year 2016.