Benefits & ERISA Law

Some Tax Statistics and the $700 Billion Bailout Package

By Suzanne Wynn

Over dinner on Saturday night, we started to wonder how much the bailout package meant for each person seated at the table.

Being tax geeks, we decided that $700 billion and dividing it by the population of the United States is not really a valid number because there are Americans who file taxes who do not live in the United States, and not every person in the United States pays taxes individually.

So we started debating what the number meant to individuals who actually file taxes. Married couples typically file one tax return even though they are two individuals because they file as one tax unit. So how much is the bailout when calculated by the number of tax units.

The IRS publishes the IRS Data Book. It contains all types of tax-related statistics including the number of tax returns filed.

*IRS Data Book 2004-2006. Includes Forms 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ, 1040NR, 1040NR-EZ, 1040-SS, 1040C filed for Fiscal Year 2006 from Table 2.

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Full post as published by Pension Protection Act Blog on September 22, 2008 (boomark / email).