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CRS Fact Sheet on Number of Federal Individual Income Taxpayers

SEP. 1, 1999

CRS Fact Sheet on Number of Federal Individual Income Taxpayers

DATED SEP. 1, 1999
DOCUMENT ATTRIBUTES
  • Authors
    Talley, Louis Alan
  • Institutional Authors
    Congressional Research Service
  • Subject Area/Tax Topics
  • Index Terms
    tax administration
    income tax, individuals
  • Jurisdictions
  • Language
    English
  • Tax Analysts Document Number
    Doc 1999-29346 (2 original pages)
  • Tax Analysts Electronic Citation
    1999 TNT 174-29

                           Louis Alan Talley

 

                     Research Analyst in Taxation

 

                    Government and Finance Division

 

 

[1] The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is often asked how many people pay federal income taxes. That number is not reported by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In this fact sheet, CRS estimates the number of individuals who pay federal income taxes based on data available from the IRS. This data was published in the March 1999 issue of the Internal Revenue Service's Statistics of Income -- 1996, Individual Income Tax Returns. For most people, tax year 1996 returns are those due by April 15, 1997. 1 The IRS data includes the total number of tax returns filed, how many are taxable, and is divided by type of return filed.

     Table 1. Number of Individual Income Tax Returns Filed, 1996

 

 

                                    Number of Returns

 

 

           Taxable                     90,929,349

 

           Nontaxable                  29,421,859

 

           Total                      120,351,208

 

 

[2] Table 1 shows 120.4 million income tax returns as filed. Of those, 29.4 million were nontaxable; 90.9 million returns were taxable. The requirement to file a return does not necessarily mean that income tax is owed for the year. For example, individuals may file a return (even though their gross income is less than the filing requirement) in order to have income tax previously withheld from pay refunded or in the case of the working poor to receive benefits under the earned income tax credit program. Individuals receiving tip income and self-employed persons earning low dollar amounts may be required to file a return to pay Social Security taxes or Medicare taxes but may not be liable for personal income taxes.

[3] Table 2 shows a breakdown of the total number of returns by filing status, and whether they are taxable or nontaxable.

 Table 2. All Returns and Taxable Returns Classified by Filing Status,

 

                                 1996

 

 

                                                       Non-

 

                               All         Taxable     Taxable

 

 Filing Status                 Returns     Returns     Returns

 

 

 Returns of single

 

   persons                   52,322,994  40,106,817  12,216,177

 

 Returns of married

 

   persons filing jointly    48,826,118  41,600,162   7,225,956

 

 Returns of married

 

   persons filing

 

   separately, heads of

 

   households, and surviving

 

   spouses                   19,202,096   9,222,370   9,979,726

 

 

 Total                      120,351,208  90,929,349  29,421,859

 

 

[4] In the case of joint returns, it is not possible to determine from the data if all income was earned by one spouse or if both spouses contributed to the reported earnings. Typically, estimators assume that a joint return represents the income of two individuals and "impute" income to a non-working spouse. If we assume that a joint return represents the return of two individuals, we find the number of taxfilers for ALL returns is 169,177,326. Using the same assumption that a joint return represents the return of two individuals, but using only those returns that are TAXABLE results in a far lower number of persons who pay income taxes. It is this figure of 131,529,511 TAXPAYERS that is most frequently used for the number of people who pay taxes.

 Table 3. Estimated Number of Individuals Who File Tax Returns and Pay

 

              Taxes -- Classified by Filing Status, 1996

 

 

                                                        Taxable

 

 Filing Status                           All Returns    Returns

 

 

 Returns of single persons               52,322,994     40,106,817

 

 

 Returns of married persons filing

 

   jointly (estimated*)                  97,652,236     83,200,324

 

 

 Returns of married persons filing

 

   separately, heads of

 

   households, and surviving spouses     19,202,096      8,222,370

 

 

 Total (estimated*)                     169,177,326    131,529,511

 

 

      * Estimated by CRS using the assumption of two adults per return.

 

FOOTNOTE

 

 

1 While some early tax estimates of individual income tax data for tax year 1997 are now available, that information is not used here because the sample size is small when compared with the sample size used for the final Statistics of Income (SOI) sample nor is the data broken down by filing status.

 

END OF FOOTNOTE
DOCUMENT ATTRIBUTES
  • Authors
    Talley, Louis Alan
  • Institutional Authors
    Congressional Research Service
  • Subject Area/Tax Topics
  • Index Terms
    tax administration
    income tax, individuals
  • Jurisdictions
  • Language
    English
  • Tax Analysts Document Number
    Doc 1999-29346 (2 original pages)
  • Tax Analysts Electronic Citation
    1999 TNT 174-29
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