The Facts About the Federal Income Tax

The Facts About the Federal Income Tax

February 22, 2023


The Facts:

 

The tax code has grown... a lot.

  • 272: the number of words in the Gettysburg Address.
  • 1337: the number of words in the Declaration of Independence.
  • 9337: the number of words in the first tax law, with 10,000 sections in the tax code as of 2021.
  • 4,000: the number of times the tax code has been revised or amended in the past 10 years. 
  • 167,000,000: the number of calls the IRS received from people confused about their taxes in 2021.

 

Complying with the tax code takes a lot of time, money, and effort.

  • 6,500,000,000: Number of hours Americans spend calculating their taxes each year.
  • If tax compliance were a company, 3,000,000+ people would have to be employed there full time.
  • 27% of people hired a professional tax preparer in 2021.
  • 78,661: full time employees at the IRS in 2021.
  • Totaled up our efforts to comply with the tax code, cost $249,000,000,000 or $748 for every man, woman, and child in the country.

 

The bulk of the tax burden falls on a small percentage of the population.

  • 167,915,264: Number of individual income tax returns in the 2021 tax year
  • $2.04 trillion in federal individual income taxes were collected in the 2021 tax year.
  • The top 50% of all taxpayers paid 97% of all individual income taxes.

 

"Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible. There is not a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes."

- Learned Hand, US District Court Judge.

 

If you think you're paying too much, call today and speak with a professional!