Tax refunds are running ahead of last year’s pace, and the average American’s refund is $64 bigger, the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday.
The IRS refunded $188.5 billion to taxpayers through April 29, up 2.3 percent from the same time last year. The average refund was $2,127, up 3.1 percent, or $64, from 2004.
The report suggests refunds increased faster than inflation. Personal expenditures, excluding food and energy, a favorite inflation tracker for Federal Reserve policymakers, rose 1.7 percent in the 12 months ending in March, the Commerce Department said.
According to the IRS, 51.5 percent of the 122.1 million returns were filed by computer, compared with 46.1 percent in 2004. This is the first year that more than half of all returns have been filed by computer.
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Edited by Tran Ha (tha@tribune.com) and Martin Gee (mtgee@tribune.com)
