Lighten up Mondays
Today is the official day for Americans – some Americans – to file their tax returns. Here are some tax facts over which to ruminate:
The Gettysburg address is 269 words, the Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words, and the Bible is only 773,000 words. However, the tax law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913 to 7 million words today.
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.
American taxpayers spend over $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 amount of effort needed to calculate and pay federal income for individuals and businesses in the United States is the equivalent of a staff of 3 million people working full-time for a year.
The IRS employs 114,000 people — 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 38.2% of the average family’s income; that’s more than for food, clothing and shelter combined.
April 21, 2017 at 3:02 pm
Not quite a “lighten up” post! But important to know.
Theresa
April 21, 2017 at 3:04 pm
So true. I try to tie in events with the lighten up theme but it doesn’t always work out that way.
April 17, 2017 at 7:03 am
I hope your week is great as well!
April 17, 2017 at 10:20 am
Amazing facts about the drudgery of filing your taxes.
April 17, 2017 at 11:01 am
I’m glad you liked it, Mary!
April 17, 2017 at 2:11 am
“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.” That’s crazy! Thanks for sharing these facts, Irene. Have a great week!