What you should know if you haven’t filed your taxes yet

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - 168 million Americans are expected to file individual returns this year, representing everyone from young workers to retirees.

As of April 7, about 101 million taxpayers had already filed, which means about 67 million Americans are waiting until the last few weeks to send in their returns.

The IRS says the average refund amount so far this tax season has been just under 3,000—about 10% lower than a year ago.

“The biggest issue is going from all of the stimulus payments to the increased child tax credit in the prior year, to it going back into what we call reverting back to the prior and all these refunds are being dropped,” said Jackson Hewitt tax preparer Tonia Treadway.

According to the most recent data from the IRS, Americans owed more than $114 billion in back taxes, penalties and interest in 2020. That’s despite the threat of stiff penalties, seizure of assets and even jail time.

“It certainly has come a long way of the olden days of sitting at your kitchen table with your parents on uncle and doing their taxes with paper and pencil. Now we’re one step from doing them with artificial intelligence,” said Chief Tax Information Officer at Jackson Hewitt, Mark Steber.

Filing electronically can speed up your refund. Generally, within 21 days, if there’s no issue, you should see your check or direct deposit.

Filing an extension will give you until October 16 to send in your tax return. However, having more time doesn’t mean you will be getting a break on any overdue payments.

Seven states have been granted extensions due to severe weather events in areas that were given disaster declarations by FEMA. Kentucky is not one of them.

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