IRS Releases FY 2015 Data Book

Last month, the Internal Revenue Service released the 2015 IRS Data Book, a snapshot of agency activities for the fiscal year.

The 2015 Data Book describes activities conducted by the IRS from Oct. 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2015 and includes information about returns filed, taxes collected, enforcement, taxpayer assistance and the IRS budget and workforce, among others. This edition also contains charts that show trends, such as the decline in the number of audits and the reduction in telephone and in-person tax assistance, but increases in the use of online resources and volunteer tax assistance.

Highlights of this year's Data Book

• During FY 2015, the IRS collected more than $3.3 trillion, processed more than 243 million tax returns and other forms, and issued over $403 billion in tax refunds.
• With more than a 15-percent reduction in full-time-equivalent staffing compared to 5 years ago, operations across a number of areas were downsized, including the total number of individual tax return examinations, which decreased by 22 percent over the same time period.
• The agency’s Website continued to get heavy use with more than 493 million visits to IRS.gov in FY 2015; and one of our most popular online tools, “Where’s My Refund?”, handled a record-breaking 234 million inquiries, a 24-percent increase over the prior year.

With a new online format, this year’s publication makes navigating data on taxpayer assistance, enforcement and IRS operations easier, with graphic depictions of key areas and quick links to the underlying data. The Data Book and its predecessor, the IRS Annual Report, have been published for more than 150 years, so this year marks a significant step forward in making IRS “Tax Stats” even more accessible.

An electronic version of the 2015 Data Book can be found on the Tax Stats page of IRS.gov. Printed copies of the 2015 IRS Data Book, Publication 55B, will be available May 2016 from the U.S. Government Printing Office. To obtain a copy, write to the Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954, or call (202) 512-1800 for voicemail, or fax a request to (202) 512-2250.