Tax filing season 2019 is in full swing, and since the IRS reported its first preliminary numbers on Feb 1, there has been some outrage about the average amount of Americans’ tax returns appearing lower than in previous years. Some suspect Donald Trump’s tax reform to be the reasons why Americans could effectively be paying more taxes this year. But the IRS cautions that because of the recent government shutdown, processing of tax returns is behind and final numbers could show a different picture.

On February 1, IRS numbers indicated that the average amount of tax returns filed by that time for 2018 was $1,865, compared to $2,035 by the same time the previous year. Looking through early February filings of past years, the average amounts are sometimes, but not always predictive of final numbers, which are released approximately 12 months after the end of each tax year. Click here to read the full story from Statista.com.