Tim’s Tax News on the Tenth – June 2025

A recent press release by the IRS addressed the Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2024 (Oct. 1, 2023 – Sept. 30, 2024) Data Book, describing the Agency’s activities. For the first time, revenue collected exceeded 5 trillion dollars, accounting for 96% of total government revenue. The IRS’s expenditures to collect over $5 trillion were $18.2 billion for overall operations in FY 2024, with 90,516 full-time equivalent employees.

Fiscal year 2024 saw a 9% increase from the prior year’s total of $4.7 trillion to a record high total of $5.1 trillion. In addition, the IRS successfully collected $29 billion in recommended additional tax after successfully closing 505,514 tax return audits. The IRS did, however, issue close to $553 billion in refunds to individuals ($490.6 billion), businesses ($36 billion), and estate and employment taxpayers during FY 2024.

The IRS has made notable efforts to improve customer satisfaction regarding phone conversations and trying to transition more people online. Notably, the IRS pilot program ‘Direct File’ for forms 1040 and 1040-SR succeeded with 140,803 accepted returns out of the 423,450 logged taxpayers.

Illinois was the fifth-largest contributor to the IRS behind California, New York, Texas, and Florida. In Illinois specifically, the IRS collected over $222 billion, roughly $190 billion from individual income tax filings, and over $25 billion from businesses. The IRS refunded approximately $16 billion to Illinoisians– approximately 7% of total IRS revenue collected from Illinois– with businesses receiving less than $2 billion in refunds. Individual filers received the majority of the remainder.

In an effort to improve on the IRS’s ‘Digital First’ initiative, they launched more digital tools than they had during the prior 20 years, including initiatives for tax professionals and C corporations. There were more than 2 billion taxpayer assistance transactions, a significant increase of 47% compared to FY 2023. The most popular automated assistance tool used in 2024 was the ‘Where’s My Refund?’ function.

The IRS issued over 1.5 million Math error notices in 2024. For tax year 2023, individual income tax returns processed during FY 2024, the two most common types of math errors were related to tax Calculations/ Other Taxes, which made up 22.5% of total math errors, and Adjusted Gross/Taxable Income Amount, which accounted for 20.1%.

The IRS Appeals Office received 51,990 cases and closed 65,573 cases, with 33,428 Cases pending as of September 30, 2024. The IRS initiated 2,667 criminal investigations in 2024. The IRS completed 2,481 investigations, 1,571 convictions, and 1,198 incarcerations. 75.7% of the total people sentenced were incarcerated. The IRS assessed $84.1 billion in civil penalties in FY 2024, with $20.2 billion being assessed on individual, estate, and trust income tax returns.



Lastly, the IRS Chief Counsel received 51,704 cases and closed 53,191 cases, of which 60.4% were from the Small Business/ Self-Employed Division. Nearly 80.2% of new cases received and about 82.2% of cases closed were related to tax law enforcement and litigation, including Tax Court litigation; collection, bankruptcy, and summons advice and litigation; Appellate Court litigation; criminal tax; and enforcement advice and assistance.

If you would like more details, please do not hesitate to call our office. Our office has been successful in helping taxpayers with IRS and IDOR collection problems for over 31 years. If you have a tax or debt problem, please contact me at 847-705-9698 or thughes@lavellelaw.com and find out how we can help you.

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