It's April 15 -- tax day!!! To lighten the mood a bit, here are some fun tax stats courtesy of BillShrink.
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60—The number of times around the Earth all the pages of tax forms and instructions filed each year by US taxpayers would stretch if it was laid out end to end.
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4/16—Unofficially known as “Divorce Day” because of the sharp increase in federal filings after plotting spouses have access to uploaded financial information.
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$100,000—“Consulting fee” a Pittsburgh furniture store owner deducted as business expense on his tax returns after paying an arsonist that sum to burn down his building so he could collect the insurance money.
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1916—Year in which the word “lawful” preceding “income” was removed from the Internal Revenue Code, making illegal income also taxable.
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120—Average number of days a U.S. taxpayer will work each year to pay tax liabilities.
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$240,009—Tax refund claimed by an Iowa man who said all his past payments to the IRS were made in error. His reasoning? The US is a “fictional entity” and can’t hold jurisdiction over him because he is a “citizen of Heaven.”
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48 Hours—Number of hours within which you are required to pay sales tax to the Tennessee Department of Revenue for all purchases of illegal drugs.
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351,191,000—Visits to IRS.gov in 2008, a 61% increase from 2007.
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$2,728—Average tax return in 2008.
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2015—Year in which electronic returns are projected to outnumber paper returns.
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$16,700,000—Amount of back taxes country singer Willie Nelson owed to the IRS in 1990.
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1817-1861—Years in which the United States Federal Government collected no internal revenue.
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9,097,000—Number of words in the IRS tax code, a 652% increase from 1955.
Good numbers, I should make myself available for consultancy as well.
Posted by: the weakonomist | April 15, 2009 at 07:03 AM
"120—Average number of days a U.S. taxpayer will work each year to pay tax liabilities."
The Tax Foundation calculates the "tax freedom day" which is the date by which we'd have to work to pay all the taxes. They figure it as April 13th for 2009 so thats 103 working days. Plus note that they include any and all taxes paid in the US including corporate income taxes and payroll taxes which we do not pay directly as individuals.
See: http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/
And of course most of us don't actually pay the average since the average is skewed high by the very wealthy who make a lot more than us.
I'm guessing that Billshrink is citing an old number from the Tax Foundation. Their figure was 120 days back in 2001.
Posted by: Jim | April 15, 2009 at 12:58 PM
That's assuming we all work a 7 day work week. Each year has around 255 business days. April 13, 2009 would be inclusive of just over 70 business days.
Posted by: Ben | April 15, 2009 at 03:19 PM
Unofficially known as “Divorce Day” because of the sharp increase in federal filings after plotting spouses have access to uploaded financial information
This one doesn't make a whole lot of sense. For one thing, divorces aren't generally filed for in federal courts.
Posted by: Sarah | April 15, 2009 at 05:44 PM
What they mean by "Divorce Day" is that the spouse that wants to leave now has access to the money information the other spouse may try to hide from them when divorce papers are sent. In many families there is one spouse that takes care of all the money while the other (usually the wife) doesn't have a clue.
Posted by: Laura S. | April 16, 2009 at 09:01 AM