With Thanksgiving shortening the workweek, ERC activity pulled back modestly but predictably. Refund dollars held up well, new audits remained nonexistent, and denials continued to concentrate almost entirely on OBBBA-disqualified quarters. For a holiday-compressed week, this was a steady performance.
In not-so-positive news, the IRS is now closing many correspondence audits issued over the past three months. In almost all cases, we are observing zero-balance adjustments, suggesting the IRS is closing these audits without approving any ERC or engaging with the taxpayer at all. Expect a wave of 105Cs with limited explanations to follow suit.
📈 Total Refunds: 122 (vs. 162 last week — down 40)
The short week likely explains most of the drop in unit volume.
📈 Total Dollar Volume: $46.6M (vs. $53.1M last week — down $6.47M)
Dollars held up better than counts, signaling continued movement of larger claims, including several seven-figure claims.
📉 Average Refund: $381,831 (vs. $327,650 last week — up $54,181)
A slight jump, reinforcing that higher-value claims remained in circulation.
📈 Average Days Between Filing and Refund: 624 (vs. 643 last week — down 19 days)
A constructive signal that the IRS continues to work on older claims.
It was a quiet week across ERC and IRS news, which is typical around Thanksgiving. No meaningful legislative, funding, or enforcement developments materially affected ERC processing.
TaxNow's Take:
While headline refund volume softened with the holiday, the underlying data continues to reinforce what we’ve been tracking for months: legacy ERC claims are still moving, average refund sizes remain resilient, and enforcement pressure is being applied narrowly through targeted disallowances tied to OBBBA-affected quarters. At the same time, the emerging pattern of silent correspondence audit closures with zero-dollar outcomes is a developing risk area that taxpayers and practitioners should monitor closely. As always, TaxNow will continue to track transcript-level activity in real time and flag meaningful shifts as they develop.
Signing off!
Kenny Dettman, CPA
Disclaimer: *𝘋𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘹𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 14,000 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘌𝘙𝘊*
