Things you might not know about Tax Day and the IRS

You might think Tax Day looms this week, but it’s not until next Tuesday.

April 15, the day your federal income tax returns are usually due, lands on a Saturday this year, so normally, that would push Tax Day until Monday, April 17. But Washington D.C. celebrates Emancipation Day on April 16, and that falls on a Sunday this year, so it’s being observed on Monday, which pushes Tax Day to Tuesday, April 18.

So you get an extra three days to fret over your returns this year.

Here are some other factoids about Tax Day and your friends at the Internal Revenue Service, compiled by WalletHub, the personal finance website that apparently has a lot of spare time on its hands.

Did you know:

▪  The IRS will collect about $1.65 trillion in taxes this year.

▪  About 92 percent of all federal revenue comes in through the IRS.

▪  It costs the IRS about 35 cents to collect each $100 of that.

▪  The IRS expects to process about 153 million returns this year, 80 percent of which will be filed electronically.

▪  Seventy percent of us will receive a tax refund check, which will average almost $2,900.

▪  Eighty-eight percent of those checks will be deposited directly into bank accounts.

▪  Sixty percent of taxpayers get professional help with their returns, and it costs them an average of $280.

▪  If you call the IRS hotline to get help, expect an 18-minute wait.

▪  You have a 0.6 percent chance of being audited, but the IRS does perform 1.2 million of them a year.

▪  There are about 4 million words in the U.S. Tax Code. That about twice as many as are in the five “Game of Thrones” books combined.

This story was originally published April 10, 2017 at 8:57 AM with the headline "Things you might not know about Tax Day and the IRS."