Internal Revenue Service CEO Frank Bisignano called this tax season "the most successful filing season in IRS history."
Bisignano testified on Tax Day during a Senate Finance Committee hearing about the filing season that is coming to a close and how IRS operations were affected by the new tax deductions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act amid extensive cutbacks in staffing at the agency.
"I am proud to be here today, April 15, the annual tax filing deadline, to discuss the filing season and IRS operations," he said in his opening statement. "Since becoming the IRS CEO in October of last year, we have transformed the taxpayer experience. This year, Tax Day holds a special importance because working families across our nation are benefiting from pro growth tax policies like never before. Let me be crystal clear: This is the most successful filing season in IRS history."
He credited President Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and congressional Republicans with securing passage of the Working Families Tax Cuts, the rebranded name of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
He noted that the IRS has received more than 134 million individual income tax returns this tax season, with over 98% of them filed electronically. The IRS issued more than 80 million refunds, with 98% of those refunds sent electronically via direct deposit. Over 90% of taxpayers who filed electronically received their refund in less than 21 days. The average refund amount is over $3,400, up by 11%. The total amount of refunds issued now stands at over $280 billion, or 16% higher than last year.
"This is real relief going out to working Americans and their families," said Bisignano.
He claimed more than 53 million Americans have already experienced financial benefits from provisions in the new tax law such as the deductions for tips, overtime, car loan interest and senior citizens. The senior deduction has been claimed more than 30 million times, with an average deduction of over $7,500. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, said while questioning Bisignano that 88% of Social Security recipients would not have to pay taxes because of the way the deduction was designed by lawmakers.
Families have signed up over 5 million children for the new Trump accounts for children born since Jan. 1, 2025, of which more than 1.2 million children are covered by elections for the
In other statistics shared by the Treasury Department, the average tax cut for filers benefitting from the tax cuts was over $800. Over 6 million filers have claimed the new tip deduction, with an average deduction of over $7,100. More than 25 million filers have claimed the overtime deduction, with an average deduction of over $3,100. Over 1 million filers have deducted the tax deduction for car loan interest on their new American vehicles, with an average deduction of over $1,800. More than 34 million families have claimed the enhanced Child Tax Credit, which has been permanently doubled and expanded by the new tax law. Over 105 million filers have claimed the permanently doubled standard deduction.
Lawmakers asked Bisignano about the cutbacks at the IRS, which he said has lost 25% of its staff, but he claimed that all the departures were due to voluntary retirements. (The
Nevertheless, Bisignano argued the IRS had performed well this past tax season despite the cutbacks, sending out 98 million tax refunds in under 231 days. He credited the success to technology improvements.
"We're always going to be upgrading, but right now, we're upgrading for next year, and we're learned a lot from this year," said Bisignano. "I think the reality is we will invest a lot more, too, in tools that help us collect more revenue, not just the servicing side."
Degraded service
Democrats pushed back against Bisignano's claims, saying that many of their constituents had experienced delays.
"On the subject of degrading public service, there is little doubt the numbers will show IRS customer service has gotten worse as a result of DOGE and Trump layoffs," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, the ranking member on the committee. "The Trump administration's decision, for example, to phase out paper checks for tax refunds has caused real problems and delays for millions of vulnerable Americans, people who don't have bank accounts to take direct deposits. It was pretty obvious this situation was coming, but the IRS did no outreach to avoid it. Now, a whole lot of Americans who count every spring on timely refunds to make ends meet are in trouble."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, claimed that DOGE had pushed out 4,400 IRS employees whose job was to answer taxpayer phone calls and the IRS fell short by 1,000 jobs of its hiring targets for this tax season.
Republicans mostly defended the IRS's performance. "The filing season opened on time," said Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, who chairs the committee. "Through April 10, the IRS received about 120 million returns and issued about 80 million refunds, millions more than last year. Average refunds increased about 11% to over $3,400, and refunds totaled almost $274 billion, tens of billions more than last year. While no filing season is perfect, the 2026 filing season has proceeded smoothly for tens of millions of Americans. Indeed, the lack of a major disruption has required some of your critics to change their tune, and in an attempt to avoid giving you credit, they now attribute this filing season's success to work that happened over a year ago. However, that shifting narrative ignores the work that you have led at the IRS to build the technology necessary to implement the Working Families Tax Cuts. New provisions for tips, overtime, car loan interest and senior deductions were claimed on over 53 million returns, nearly half of all filings. These figures indicate that the IRS has done its job to ensure delivery of significant new middle class tax relief."
Accounting Today asked Treasury Department officials during a press call about the impact of the IRS needing to reassign many of its staff members to handle customer service questions about the new tax provisions. Treasury officials who asked not to be identified responded that during each tax season, they look at where staff is most necessary and train the staff to make sure they're prepared. Officials also credited technology improvements in functions such as the Where's My Refund tool on IRS.gov in helping taxpayers get their questions answered rather than needing to call on the phone. In terms of staffing, an official said the IRS traditionally has moved people around within the agency to serve customers where they're needed. When asked about whether taxpayers were disappointed with the strict limitations on the new deductions, which are often referred to as "no tax on tips," as well as overtime, car loans and seniors, a Treasury official pointed to the number of claims for the new deductions, pointing out they were designed for those people who work for tips and overtime to keep more of their hard-earned paycheck, with an average deduction of over $7,100.
During the hearing, Bisignano was pressed about how the IRS has been cutting back on audits of high-income taxpayers, but he claimed the agency has been leveraging advanced technology such as artificial intelligence and data analytics to find noncompliance.
"We've sent out, over the past two months, 500,000 letters to people who we knew were, in fact, sending in underreported returns, and they corrected them," he said. "Those wouldn't show up as audits, but that's our data collection capability. ... As I like to say, we were doing AI before it was AI, and that resulted in $250 million more collections. If you look at using tools that take data and give the agents way more information and power, it's the reason why enforcement revenue is up 12% right now. And those types of items allow us to get more done. If you look at the fact that amended returns took six weeks to process, and now they take three days, that gives us more capability, better intelligence and better ways to act on them. There's a lot going on inside the agency, from a technology standpoint, that's actually driving outcomes."
He said the five biggest cases of such noncompliance brought in $2 billion in revenue.
Direct File vs. Free File
Bisignano was asked by Democrats, including Wyden, about the demise of the Direct File program, which the Trump administration
"We have seen that this filing season, over 2 million taxpayers have taken advantage of Free File. During this filing season, millions more have used free options provided by private industry also. Direct File was a costly, unnecessary and less popular duplicate of programs that already are in place. Despite heavy promotion by the Biden administration, Direct File was by far the least used free filing option. To put it in real terms, Mr. Chairman, the IRS spent $72 million to develop and implement the duplicative system that nearly all individual taxpayers did not use. This works out to a cost to our country of more than $242 per filed return, more than 60% costlier than the IRS estimates for an average individual-prepared return. As part of the commonsense actions I've taken as the CEO of the IRS, it only makes sense to take the resources that were being wasted on duplicative products and not getting the use and instead bolster the enhanced programs that have worked for taxpayers."
