Tax Year 2005 County Income Record Layout and Users Guide A. File characteristics: ASCII language Filename = countyincome05.dat Record length = 115 characters B. Records Included: The file contains a record for each state in the U.S. (including the District of Columbia) and for each county and county equivalent in the U.S. Data items requiring suppression had the data value added into a successor county, and the value needing suppression replaced with a "-1". The suppression counties and successor counties are shown in the following table. Data items affected are noted by an "X" in the appropriate column of the following table. Suppress Successor All Wage Div Int Counties Counties Data & Inc Inc Items Salary 15-005 (Kalawao) 15-009 (Maui) X 48-261 (Kenedy) 48-215 (Hidalgo) X 48-301 (Loving) 48-475 (Ward) X C. Record description: Character Description Positions 1-2 FIPS State Code 01 to 56 = States in the U.S. 3 Blank 4-6 FIPS County Code: 000 = County code on a state record 001 to 999 = Potential legitimate values. See state/county codelist for actual county codes used. 7 Blank 8-9 State abbreviation (2-character) AL to WY = States in the U.S. 10 Blank 11-42 County Name 43 Blank 44-55 Number of returns -1 = data value suppressed 10 to 999999999999 = Potential legitimate values 56-67 Number of exemptions (excluding deceased) -1 = data value suppressed 10 to 999999999999 = Potential legitimate values 68-79 Adjusted gross income (in 1000s) -1 = data value suppressed -99999999999 to 999999999999 = Potential legitimate values 80-91 Wages and salaries income (in 1000s) -1 = data value suppressed 10 to 999999999999 = Potential legitimate values 92-103 Dividends before exclusion (in 1000s) -1 = data value suppressed 10 to 999999999999 = Potential legitimate values 104-115 Interest received, including taxable and non-taxable interest income (in 1000s) -1 = data value suppressed 10 to 999999999999 = Potential legitimate values D. Definitions and Explanations Data Source The data include records from the domestic tax forms 1040, 1040A and 1040EZ as well as the foreign tax forms 1040NR, 1040PR, 1040VI and 1040SS. These data are processed until the 39th week in the IRS's processing year, which is known as “cycle 39” which occurs in late September. Returns processed after that time period are not included in the data. The cycle 39 data contain about 95% to 98% of all returns filed during any given tax year. In actual usage, the 2004 cycle 39 file had approximately 126 million returns and represented about 248 million people. This is because the IRS returns not only cover the filer but also the filer's spouse and all dependants via the exemptions category. Title 13 and Title 26 confidentiality statutes protect the IRS data so individual taxpayers cannot be identified, either directly or indirectly. Data released under these statutes are statistical summaries and have undergone suppression procedures to ensure no inappropriate disclosure of information. Procedures are uniform across data products and within products to ensure consistency so that inadvertent disclosures from complementary data tables do not occur. There are two limitations of these data sources that deal with file coverage and population coverage. First, the cycle 39 data does not represent the entire population and any control counts shown in these tables will not match analogous control counts in other IRS statistical data products. Second, there are segments of the population that are not well represented by tax returns, most notably, the elderly and the poor. Care should be exercised when using these data as proxies for other population universes. Reference Period The tax returns are (mostly) filed during the spring following the end of the tax year. This means that the bulk of the 2005 tax returns are processed in the spring of 2006 and represent residence of filing. When we refer to the data in files we mean the tax year. Income Data Description The income amounts represent the taxable income amounts shown on the tax forms. Aggregate income is the sum total of the income amounts from all applicable records. Wage and Salary Income includes income from wages, salaries, tips, etc (see line 7 on the form 1040) Interest Income includes taxable interest income and the non-taxable interest income (see lines 8a and 8b in the form 1040) Dividend income includes taxable distributions of money, stock, or other property received from domestic or foreign corporations, excluding non-taxable distributions or distributions that are treated as interest income (see line 9 on the form 1040). Adjusted gross income includes the taxable income from all sources, less the adjustments to income, such as IRS deduction, self employment tax and health insurance, alimony paid, etc. (See line 37 on the form 1040).