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Friday, October 22, 2010

IRS Stats Group Posts Reports Dating Back to 1863

This week the IRS announced that it has posted some of its numerous historic statistical reports dating back to 1916 as well as the Commissioner's report of 1863!

Per the IRS:

"In 2009, SOI began digitizing nearly 500 print publications (and more than 50,000 pages) from its library. As a result of this effort, a wealth of historical tax data is now easily accessible in electronic format. The archive includes publications from 1916 through 1999. Publications for 2000 to present are available from the Tax Stats landing page here.


The oldest report available here was published in 1863. The Report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for 1863 contains information on the collection of revenue by source and district of collection. From 1863 to today, the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, later called the IRS Data Book, presents an annual overview of IRS operations."

In 1916, 437,036 personal income tax returns were filed reporting an aggregate of $6.2 billion of income, an average tax of $396 and average tax rate of 2.15%. Exemptions for filing status reduced aggregate income by about 25%.

Today, about 142 million individual returns are filed annually.

Thanks to the IRS for posting the reports!

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