[The_Magistrate]

Could the 5% drop be accounted for considering the numbers are for April 14th 2017 and not after the filing deadline of April 18th 2017? Seems like many people would file and/or postmark their returns Monday or Tuesday.

[gdulli]

Both dates are 4 days before the tax deadline for the respective years.

[adrianmonk]

Different days of the week, though. That affects behavior a lot.

[rodionos]

Tax day in 2016 was also April 18th.

[gozur88]

I'm wondering if it had something to do with Easter. There might be a lot of people who were tied up with family stuff and figured they could start on Monday. Last year Easter was in March.

[differentView]

Why not use stats from April 18th then?

[rodionos]

Cause IRS devops isn't there yet. They (collect?) release metrics on Fridays.

[popey456963]

It is Friday? Roughly 4PM on Friday, which means they'll likely be closing down shortly. Seems odd for them to do it as such a last minute thing.