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(Getty Images / Zach Gibson)
(CNSNews.com) – Of the 150,272,157 returns filed for the 2016 tax year, 50,219,667 (33.4%) were classified by the Internal Revenue Service as "tax returns". "Tax-free," meaning that the people who produced them paid $ 0 or less in income taxes, according to data released by the IRS Income Statistics Division.
At the same time, 80% of all income taxes paid that year were by taxfilers who had an adjusted gross income of $ 100,000 or more.
Table 2.3 of the income statistics published by the IRS lists the total number of returns that the IRS estimates to have received during a taxation year. It also breaks down this number into "taxable returns" and number of "tax-free returns".
"A taxable return," says the IRS, "is a statement of which the total amount of income tax is greater than $ 0.
"A tax-free return, on the other hand, could have a negative or negative tax liability after accounting for all credits (including refundable credits)," the IRS said.
In 2016, according to Table 2.3, the IRS received 150,272,157 total tax returns. Of this number, 100,052,490 were "taxable returns" – meaning that taxfilers paid income taxes – and 50,219,667 (or 33.4%) were "tax-free returns" – meaning taxfilers were paying 0 $ or less in income tax.
Between 1986 and 2016, the percentage of "non-taxable" tax returns peaked at 41.7% in 2009, the year of the last recession. The lowest percentage of non-taxable returns during the same period was in 1986, while only 18.5% of all returns filed with the IRS came from taxpayers who had paid $ 0 or less in taxes on income.
In 2009, a peak year for "non-taxable returns", according to Table 2.3, the IRS estimates to have received a total of 140,494,127 tax returns. Of this number, 81,890,189 were "taxable" and 58,603,939 were "non-taxable".
In 2016, according to Table 1.1 of the Statistics of Income report, the IRS estimates that it has collected a total of $ 1,446,047,084,984,000 in income taxes. Of this amount, $ 1,157,534,262,000 – or 80.0% – was paid by taxfilers with adjusted gross incomes of $ 100,000 or more.
From 1996 to 2016, the percentage of total income tax paid by tax filers with an adjusted gross income of $ 100,000 or more peaked at 80.5% in 2015. Over the same period, the percentage of total income tax paid by tax filers The lowest total income taxes paid by tax filers with incomes over $ 100,000 was in 1996, when they were 51.4%.
In 1996, the IRS estimated to have received $ 658,244,750 in income taxes, of which $ 338,010,561,000, or 51.4%, was paid by tax filers whose adjusted gross income was equal or more than $ 100,000.
Even when dependents who filed income tax returns are removed from the data, almost one-third of filers still did not pay income taxes.
"Dependent declarations," says the IRS, "are those that are produced by persons who can be exempted in another taxpayer's return (usually that of a parent). In other words, the taxpayer claiming the exemption has provided more than half of his support. "
The law on tax cuts and employment that President Donald Trump promulgated in December 2017 removed the personal exemption of at least 2025, but it still applied taxes paid for 2016.
In 2016, according to Table 1.7 in the Income Statistics section, 9,383,372 dependents filed a tax return. Of these, 4,148,923 paid part of the income tax ($ 3,263,049,000) and 5,234,449 paid no income tax.
When dependents and their tax payments are deducted from national totals for 2016, 140,888,785 non-dependent returns were filed that year. Of these, 95,903,567 were taxable returns and 44,985,218 – or 31.9% of the total – 140,888,785 – were non-taxable returns, which represented tax filers whose income tax was equal or less than $ 0.
The 150,272,157 tax returns estimated by the IRS for the 2016 taxation year included 54,042,991 jointly filed by a married couple; 3,068,134 filed by a married person filing separately; 21,659,639 filed by a head of household; 71,410,690 filed by one person; and 90,703 filed by a surviving spouse.
CNSNews.com's commercial and economic reports are funded in part by a donation in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.
Addendum: In its "Comprehensive Report on Personal Income Tax Returns – 2016", the IRS Income Statistics Division provided a more detailed explanation of the distinction between "taxable and non-taxable returns". It stated the following:
"The taxable and non-taxable filing of a return for this report is determined by the presence of a" total income tax. "Some tax filings classified as" non-taxable "may have taxed others. Taxes, such as refund of tax credit for – tax on employment, tax on gratuities not collected by Social Security and Medicare employees, credit calculation tax for investment of l & # 39; 39, previous year, penalty tax on individual retirement accounts, section 72 penalty tax, household income tax, individual health care payment payments in golden parachute. were ignored for the purpose of this classification, as four of the above taxes were considered social security taxes (and not income taxes), and the remaining taxes were either based on the previous year, tax penalties. The prepayment of the premium tax credit was not an income tax, but a refund of an amount already advanced to taxpayers for the payment of sickness insurance underwritten by a health care grant. health. The net tax on the investment income of Form 8960 has been added to the after-tax income tax to create an income tax.
"For this report, the earned income credit, the US opportunity credit, the premium tax credit, the regulated investment companies and the health insurance credit are first and foremost treated as an amount used to offset income tax before credits. As they were refundable, they were subtracted from the income tax (for statistics) after reduction of all other legal credits. As a result, some returns became tax-free because of the refundable credit, where the refundable credits equaled or exceeded the income tax before the reduced credits of any other credit.
"It should be noted that the classification as taxable or non-taxable was based on each statement as it was produced and does not reflect any changes resulting from an audit or other activities of any kind. application."
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