IRS Issues Spring 2003 Statistics of Income Bulletin

The spring bulletin includes historical data on income, deductions, and tax reported on returns filed by individuals, corporations, and unincorporated businesses, with selected data presented for estates. Statistics are also presented on tax collections, including excise taxes by type, and refunds for recent years.

Remarkably, the highest 400 taxpayers reported income of nearly $70 billion for 2000 -- more than one percent of total U.S. income for that year. Between 1992 and 2000, the annual cutoff AGI to make the list increased from $24.4 million to $86.8 million. For more on this story, see IRS: Richest Earn More, Taxed Less

Other statistics:

About 2.8 million individual income tax returns reporting income of $200,000 or more for 2000 were filed. These returns represent slightly more than 2 percent of all returns for 2000.
S corporations returns, which represent 56.7 percent of all corporate entities, increased 4.9 percent from Tax Year 1999. The number of shareholders for S corporations increased to nearly 5.2 million, up 2.6 percent from the previous year. For Tax Year 2000, total assets increased 10.0 percent from $1.6 trillion in Tax Year 1999 to nearly $1.8 trillion in Tax Year 2000. Total net income (less deficit) increased 2.5 percent to $198.5 billion.
The IRS received 113,075 split-interest trust information returns for 2000. They reported approximately $93.9 billion in book value end-of-year total assets. Charitable remainder unitrusts and annuity trusts, which comprised 74.5 percent and 20.0 percent, respectively, of the total number of filers, held 75.6 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively, of total assets. Lead trusts, which comprised only 4.0 percent of the total number of filers, held a surprising 11.5 percent of the total assets.
Gross "unrelated business income" reported on Form 990-T, Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Return, increased only 2 percent between Tax Years 1998 and 1999, and the number of organizations filing Form 990-T declined by 9 percent. After offsetting total gross UBI of $7.7 billion with $6.8 billion of deductions, the resulting unrelated business taxable income (less deficit) for 1999 was $0.9 billion. Based on $1.5 billion of total unrelated business taxable income, the associated unrelated business income tax was $423.1 million.
California, New York, and Texas continue to dominate the statistics. California was the leader with 15.1 million returns, $797.8 billion in adjusted gross income, and $119.3 billion in income tax.

To access the Spring 2003 Statistics of Income Bulletin, visit the IRS Web site at http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=97067,00.html