This section of the Data Book provides information on the scope and composition of the ways the IRS provides assistance, not only to taxpayers but also to tax-exempt organizations and government entities. The IRS assists taxpayers in meeting their Federal tax return filing and payment obligations through its telephone helplines, via the Internet, at IRS Taxpayer Assistance Centers, and through volunteer-provided income tax assistance. View chart detailsXLSX. For additional graphs from this section, download the PDF of this year’s Data BookPDF. Highlights of the Data In Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, the IRS assisted nearly 88.0 million taxpayers through correspondence, its enterprise-wide telephone helplines, or at Taxpayer Assistance Centers (Table 9XLSX). In FY 2021, the IRS provided self-assistance to taxpayers through almost 2.0 billion visits to IRS.gov, including 632.4 million inquiries to the "Where's My Refund" application, and 16.8 million active IRS2GO mobile app users (Table 10XLSX). The IRS closed 94,466 applications for tax-exempt status in FY 2021. Of those, the IRS approved tax-exempt status for 86.4 percent of these applications (Table 12XLSX). In FY 2021, the IRS recognized nearly 2.0 million organizations, including new determinations, as tax-exempt. More than 1.8 million of these organizations were exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c), with 1.4 million qualifying as tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) (Table 14XLSX). Index of Data Book Tables Taxpayer Assistance: Tables 9–16 Table 9: Selected Taxpayer Assistance and Education Programs, by Type of Assistance or Program, Fiscal Year 2021XLSXTable 10: Selected Online Taxpayer Assistance, by Type of Assistance, Fiscal Year 2021XLSXTable 11: Taxpayer Advocate Service: Post-filing Taxpayer Assistance Program, by Type of Primary Issue and Relief, Fiscal Year 2021XLSXTable 12: Closures of Applications for Tax-Exempt Status, by Organization Type and Internal Revenue Code Section, Fiscal Year 2021XLSXTable 13: Receipts of Forms 8976, Notices of Intent To Operate Under Section 501(c)(4), Fiscal Year 2021 XLSXTable 14: Tax-Exempt Organizations, Nonexempt Charitable Trusts, and Nonexempt Split-Interest Trusts, Fiscal Year 2021XLSXTable 15: Determination Letters Issued on Employee Retirement Plans, by Type and Disposition of Plan, Fiscal Year 2021XLSXTable 16: Technical Activities and Voluntary Compliance Closures, Fiscal Year 2021XLSX Data for all years Table 9 Table 10 Table 11 Table 12 Table 13 Table 14 Table 15 Table 16 Additional applications may be needed to access linked content on this page. Get free Adobe Acrobat® reader or Excel® viewer. Return to the IRS Data Book home page Back to Top