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Statistics of Income (SOI) Bulletin - Summer 2021PDF

The Statistics of Income Bulletin is issued quarterly by the Statistics of Income Division of the Internal Revenue Service. Usually, the report provides the earliest published annual financial statistics obtained from the various types of tax and information returns filed, as well as information from periodic or special analytical studies of particular interest to students of the U.S. tax system, tax policymakers, and tax administrators. However, this time, we are dedicating this issue to honor the 40th Anniversary of the SOI Division's flagship publication. Join us for a trip down memory lane as we view four articles—each of which is reprinted from the first year of each of the previous four decades. Happy 40th Anniversary, SOI Bulletin!

Featured Articles

Summer 1981 
Individual Income Tax Returns 
Preliminary Income, Deduction, and Residential Energy Credit Statistics for 1979
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By Noreen Hoffmeier

Preliminary statistics for Income Year 1979 showed a 3.2-percent increase in the number of individual income tax returns filed, from 89.8 million for Income Year 1978 to 92.6 million for Income Year 1979, in spite of the tax law changes raising the minimum income levels for filing a tax return. Adjusted gross income reached $1.5 trillion for 1979, a 12.4-percent increase over 1978.

The tax return data presented in this article reflect not only economic conditions, but also the results of tax law changes that went into effect for 1979. Major changes for 1979 tax returns, which were chiefly the result of the Revenue Act of 1978, covered income, exemptions, deductions, credits, and tax.

Fall 1991 
Corporation Income Tax Returns, 1988
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By Amy Pavelko and Patrice Treubert

As a reflection of the continued economic growth in the 1980s and base broadening provisions of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA), corporate pretax profits for 1988 increased 25.8 percent to $413.0 billion. Income Year 1988 was also the first for which many of the changes to the tax code based on TRA were fully implemented. The number of returns declined from 3.61 million to 3.56 million chiefly because of the unusually large number of part-year returns filed for 1987, which were required to implement new TRA rules applicable to S Corporations. This was the first decline in the number of corporation income tax returns filed since the end of World War II.

Summer 2001
Sales of Capital Assets Reported on Individual Income Tax Returns, 1997
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By Janette Wilson

The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 reduced the tax rates that applied to net long-term capital gains from the sale, exchange, or conversion of capital assets. The new rates applied only to transactions that took place after May 6, 1997. Net capital gains (i.e., net of capital losses) increased by more than 40 percent for Tax Year 1997, increasing by over $100 billion to $360.7 billion from Tax Year 1996 amounts. Capital gain distributions from mutual funds increased by 82.6 percent for Tax Year 1997 to $44.9 billion.

Capital gains from sales of corporate stock accounted for approximately 38 percent of total net capital gains for the year. The next largest sources of gains were passthrough entities, representing about 26 percent, and capital gain distributions at more than 12 percent of total net capital gains.

Spring 2011
2008 Gifts
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By Melissa J. Belvedere

The gift tax is one of three parts of the Federal transfer tax system, along with the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes. The gift tax is imposed on gifts made during the donor's lifetime, known as inter vivos gifts. Donors use the United States Gift (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return (Form 709), to report those gifts. This article presents data on gifts made during 2008. Donors filed a total of 234,714 returns for 2008, reporting a total of $40.2 billion in assets transferred to 927,554 donees, primarily children and grandchildren. Most gifts were given directly to recipients. However, family trusts were used more commonly than other vehicles. The majority of gifts given were in the form of cash, while the next most commonly used form of gift was corporate stock.

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