The 2007 tax-filing season wound down a little over a month ago, once again setting records.

This year, e-filing continued to climb, hitting a new high of 76 million electronically submitted returns. While e-filing has always been popular among early filers who typically are expecting refunds and like the way the cyber system gets them their money faster, this year’s tax season saw another e-surge in April.

The number of electronically-filed returns sent by last-minute filers, a group that until this year has tended to send in paper 1040s, jumped 35 percent during the final weeks of this filing season over the same period last year.

New filing records also were set this year for the number of returns e-filed by home computer users, the number of balance-due returns filed electronically and the number and amount of direct-deposit refunds.

You can see some of the latest filing figures in the "By the Numbers" section, over there in the upper right column of this page. Other IRS' statistics show:

• More than 76.7 million returns were e-filed through May 4, easily topping the more than 73.2 million electronically-filed returns received for all of 2006. It’s also an 8.9 percent increase over last year at this time, with most of the increase coming in March and April.
• A record 22 million taxpayers e-filed from a home computer. That's an 11 percent increase over the same time last year and already eclipses 2006’s yearly total of 20.3 million.
• The average refund so far is $2,255, a 2.5 percent increase over last year at this time.
• Another record was set when more than 59 million refunds were deposited directly into savings, checking and brokerage accounts, representing more than 61 percent of all refunds issued.

If in April you got an extension to file your taxes, you can still add to the IRS' 2007 records. The agency is accepting, actually encouraging, yet-to-file taxpayers to do so electronically when they finally get around to completing their 1040s. Based on current trends, the agency expects about 58 percent of all 2006 returns to eventually be e-filed.

And Free File is part of the calculation. That option also remains available to eligible filers through the Oct. 15 extension deadline.