As
the tax filing deadline approaches, Money Magazine has offered some
interesting statistics on our annual ritual. In the early months, the
IRS says that roughly 83% of all returns have resulted in refunds, with
an average refund of $2,893 per return. In all, roughly eight out of
ten filers qualify for a refund, and this year's refund is in line with
previous year averages.
Meanwhile,
the IRS website notes that in the past few years, roughly 47% of
Americans were below the threshold where they had to pay income
taxes-which is where the famous "47 percenters" phrase came from in the
Romney presidential campaign. However virtually all of those Americans
paid FICA taxes. In all, 185.5 million income tax returns were filed
last year, but only 34,000 estate tax returns and just 335,000 gift tax
returns. The government collected $1.64 trillion in individual income
taxes, compared with $353 billion in business income taxes. In
aggregate, Californians paid the most taxes, at $369 billion, well ahead
of Texas ($265 billion) and New York ($251 billion). At the other end
of the spectrum, the citizens of Vermont paid $4.3 billion and people
and companies living in Wyoming paid $4.9 billion.
Finally,
there's an interesting comparison. The King James Bible totals around
700,000 words, whereas the U.S. Federal Tax Code numbers 3.7 million
words.
Sources:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/26/pf/taxes/average-tax-refund-irs/index.html?iid=SF_PF_River
http://facts.randomhistory.com/tax-facts.html http://www.sars.gov.za/AllDocs/Documents/Tax%20Stats/Tax%20Stats%202014/TStats%202014%20Highlights%20WEB.pdf http://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-IRS-Data-Book |
Sincerely,
Bill Morrissey, CFP® and Tammy Prouty, CFP®
Sound Financial Planning, Inc.
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