Tax Fun Facts

“If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.”

Will Rogers

Taxes. Sometimes it’s best just to laugh as you drop off another year’s return in the mailbox or hit the “send” button to file electronically. On this year’s tax day, here are a few facts/quotes to help keep your mind off the job at hand. Enjoy, and Happy Tax Day!

• In 1952, Joseph Nunan was convicted of income tax evasion and sent to prison for five years. Happens all the time, right? Not so fast! It so happens that Mr. Nunan was once the Commissioner of the IRS!
   
• The first U.S. tax code (1913) was 400 pages. It is now over 70,000 pages! The IRS sends out an average of 8 billion pages of paper every tax season. Just how much is that? Laid end-to-end, all those pieces of paper would wrap around Earth 28 times.
   
• The initial income tax (1861) was a comfortable 3%. These days the top tax bracket swallows 34% of one’s income.
   
• To create all the necessary tax forms, over 300,000 trees need to be sacrificed each year. It’s a good thing they now use recycled paper!

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
Albert Einstein

• In 2006, the IRS collected $1.2 trillion worth of federal income taxes.
   
• Also in 2006, over 229 million income tax returns were filed.
   
• The IRS employs over 114,000 people, who are paid a total of about $10 billion yearly for their dedicated service. How does that employment figure compare to other government agencies? It’s twice the workers employed by the CIA and five times the employees of the FBI.
   
• The “easiest” tax form (1040EZ) has 33 pages of instruction!

“Worried about an IRS audit? Avoid what’s called a red flag. That’s something the IRS looks for. For example, say you have some money left in your bank account after paying taxes. That’s a red flag.”
Jay Leno

• The first e-file (electronic transmission of a tax return) took place on January 24, 1986. Did you hear the Post Office sigh?
   
• Love or hate them, the IRS is nothing if not efficient; for every $100 collected, it costs them only thirty-nine cents.
   
• American taxpayers spend 5.4 billion hours (and $200 billion) working to comply with federal taxes each year. That’s a bigger yearly work force than it takes to produce every U.S. car, truck and van!

“Today it takes more brains and effort to make out the income tax form than it does to make the income.”
Alfred E. Neuman

• Tax Freedom Day is the day when US citizens have earned enough money to pay their Federal Income taxes. You’ll work until April 13 to pay off your 2009 taxes. That means you’ll labor for more than a fourth of the year to earn enough money to pay all your taxes for the year.
   
• The U.S. tax code contains 7,000,000,000 words. Yep, that’s 7 billion. In the literary world, it tops quite a few heavyweights. The Gettysburg Address, one of the greatest speeches in U.S. history, has 269 words. The Declaration of Independence has 1,337 words. Even the Holy Bible has 773,000 words.

“Did you ever notice that when you put the words “The” and “IRS” together, it spells “THEIRS?”
Anonymous

Don’t forget, you have until midnight, Thursday, April 15!