Treasury: Individual Income Tax Hits Processing Milestone at 95%

Average Refund for 2026 Tax Season was Nearly $900, Tax Professional and Tax Preparer Feedback Helps Systems Improve

The Michigan Department of Treasury today announced that 95% of individual income tax returns have been completed for the filing season, representing a key milestone for the tax filing season that opened on January 26.

The 95% achievement represents that most tax returns received before the April 15 filing deadline have been processed. As of June 8, 2026, Treasury processed more than 5.12 million individual income tax returns and issued over $3.43 billion in refunds since the filing season opened on January 26. The average refund was $901.

“I want to thank our taxpayers and tax professionals for their patience during individual income tax season,” said Deputy State Treasurer Kavita Kale, who oversees Treasury Revenue Services service area. “The Michigan Department of Treasury replaced a 40-year-old legacy system with a modern, commercial off-the-shelf product capable of doing end-to-end tax administration. This was the equivalent of moving from a landline phone to a smart phone. The 95% milestone is an important benchmark for processing returns and matches year-to-date progress compared to previous years.”

Tax returns that remain unprocessed fall into categories where they have missing or incorrect information, require identity verification, have higher than typical complexities with multiple schedules or credits, or must be offset to address a potential debt or court-ordered garnishment.

Treasury continues processing tax returns from previous and current tax years – as well as returns with extensions – throughout the year.

At the end of 2025, Treasury officially launched its new tax processing system. The new system has been able to process millions of returns with increased accuracy and security, strengthen fraud detection, identify errors with greater precision, and issue refunds within expected timeframes for most taxpayers.

“Because we were transitioning from decades of accumulated processes and data, we took a conservative, risk-controlled approach,” Kale said. “Our focus was stability, accuracy and protection of taxpayer information.”

A key element of this implementation is the development of Michigan Treasury eServices, which is a new online platform to improve how taxpayers and service providers interact with Treasury regarding Michigan taxes. The platform also allows taxpayers to see and send tax information, as well as correspond with Treasury.

Tax professionals have been an important component of helping Treasury continuously improve its system.

“We really have been dependent on the tax professional and tax community to help us with processes and feedback,” said Katina Litterini, who oversees the Tax Administration Services Bureau. “I want to thank them for their understanding and efforts during this system transition.”

Treasury has created a “Solutions Tracker” to transparently identify and problem-solve known issues.

In addition, Treasury is aware of concerns regarding letters and difficulty with getting through to the call center and is committed to addressing these problems directly.

For example, the current phone system cannot handle peak demand, leading to dropped calls and service failures. Treasury is upgrading to a new phone system in July 2026, expanding capacity and automation. There will be no queue limitations in the new system and taxpayers will be able to hold or select the next-in-line callback option.

To learn more about the state’s individual income tax, go to www.michigan.gov/incometax. To get started with Michigan Treasury eServices, go to www.michigan.gov/mitreasuryeservices.