SOI Tax Stats - Purpose and Function of Statistics of Income (SOI) Program

 

The Revenue Act of 1916 mandated the annual publication of statistics related to “the operations of the internal revenue laws” as they affect:

  • Individuals
  • All forms of businesses
  • Estates
  • Nonprofit organizations
  • Trusts
  • Investments abroad and foreign investments in the United States

SOI fulfills this function by collecting and processing data so that they become informative and by sharing information about how the tax system works with other government agencies and the general public.

Publication types include traditional print sources, Internet files, and files sent via e-mail. SOI has an information office, Statistical Information Services, to facilitate the dissemination of SOI data.

Statistical Information Services (SIS):

Internal Revenue Service
Attn: Statistical Information Services (RAAS:S)
1111 Constitution Ave., NW   K-Room 4100-123
Washington, DC  20224-0002

For additional information, please e-mail us your questions at: sis@irs.gov

Organizational Structure

SOI has four Branches, each responsible for one of the below functional areas regarding Federal taxation or technical support:

  • Individuals and tax exempt organizations
  • Corporations, partnerships, and international
  • Information, management, and data dissemination, which is responsible for SOI’s systems and program development, its Tax Stats Web page on IRS.gov, public data releases, and publications
  • Statistical services, which provides support to the other three Branches, and IRS Operating Division

Each Branch has several Sections. The three subject-specific Branches are staffed with economists;  computer specialists; and researchers or information dissemination specialists. The Statistical Services Branch provides both computer support and statistical support.

How SOI Program Information Is Used

Our annual budget of about $40 million makes us a leading Federal statistical organization. The information we gather, analyze, and publish is used by a variety of Federal agencies, academics, researchers, and curious people. It’s used to analyze tax policy, project tax revenues, and estimate the overall impact of tax law changes and their effects on tax collections.

Our primary clients are the Office of Tax Analysis (OTA) in the Secretary of the Treasury’s Office and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)—each of whom is entitled to receive detailed tax return files. Most other agencies and individuals can only access data in the aggregate to protect individual privacy as described in Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Among some of these other clients are:

  • The Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Federal Reserve Board, the General Accounting Office, the Social Security Administration, and the Health Care Financing Administration; and
  • Tax practitioners, policy researchers, demographers, economic analysts, consultants, business associations, State and local Governments, universities, public libraries, and the media.

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