The tax code has 1,395,000 million words; 693 sections applicable to individuals; 1,501 sections applicable to businesses; and 445 sections applicable to tax-exempt organizations, employee plans and governments. The tax code is 13,000 pages long.
As of June 2000, Treasury had issued 20,000 pages of tax regulations with more than 8 million words.
There are more than 700 IRS tax forms and more than 250 publications explaining them, totaling more than 8 million words.
The IRS 1040 has 79 lines, 144 pages of instructions, 11 schedules totaling 443 lines, and 19 worksheets.
In 1999, taxpayers contacted the IRS 117 million times for advice and clarification. Taxpayers received wrong answers 47 percent of the time.
55 percent of taxpayers use professional tax preparation services. A 1997 Money magazine test asked 45 tax professionals to calculate the tax liability for a hypothetical family. Not one got the correct answer and only one in four came within $1,000 of the correct answer.
Taxpayers spend about 4.3 billion hours a year filing returns and complying with tax laws, costing the economy $125 billion.
In the last election, only 65 percent of eligible voters had any tax liability. 70 million voters had no liability.
43 percent of those filing income tax returns benefit for the income tax by receiving "refunds" in excess of their tax liability.
Not counting last year's tax cut package, in the last five years Congress had approved more than 2,000 tax changes which added 5,000 pages and provisions and explanatory text to the text code.
The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay 36.2 percent of all federal income taxes (they receive 19.5 percent of adjusted gross income). The top 10 percent pay 67 percent of all taxes. The top half of taxpayers pay 96 percent of all taxes.
Taking the standard deduction cost taxpayers an estimated $311 million in 1998, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO). The average overpayment was $610. Approximately 35 percent of taxpayers taking standard deductions overpaid by more than $500.
These statistics were gathered from Citizens Against Government Waste on their website, www.cagw.org, where the reader will find other interesting facts and stats on government spending and tax.
The tax code has 1,395,000 million words; 693 sections applicable to individuals; 1,501 sections applicable to businesses; and 445 sections applicable to tax-exempt organizations, employee plans and governments. The tax code is 13,000 pages long.