it’s the day to send in your tax forms. therefore, i though i would post a little tax trivia.
- in 2005, americans will work 70 days to afford their federal taxes and 37 more days to afford state and local taxes. on average, everything earned by the typical american taxpayer from january 1st, through april 17th, went to the federal, local and state governments.
everything you earn starting april 18 is yours.
unless you get a raise… - the gettysburg address is 269 words, the declaration of independence is 1,337 words, and the holy bible is only 773,000 words. however, the tax law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913, to over 7 million words today.
- there are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions. even the easiest form, the 1040e has 33 pages in instructions, and all in fine print.
- the irs sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth.
- nearly 300,000 trees are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the irs forms and instructions. the total number of computers thrown out the window, or kicked with a frustrated foot is unknown.
- american taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year, more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the united states.
- the irs employs 114,000 people; that’s twice as many as the cia and five times more than the fbi.
- 60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.
- taxes eat up nearly 40% of the average family’s income; that’s more than for food, clothing and shelter combined.