What’s In A Number?

Summer greetings everyone!

I hope you all are enjoying the summer months. Although I have been busy, I have found time to enjoy some outdoor activities. Hopefully you have as well.

I decided I would have a little fun with this month’s publication. As the title suggests, I pulled up random statistical data that if not informative, certainly is interesting, and borders on entertaining. So what is in a number? Lets break it down from bottom to the top.

  • 1.01 The percent chance of being audited if you make $200,000 or less.
  • 2 Number of weeks it takes to receive a social security number for a newborn in Oregon.
  • 3.33 The percent chance of being audited if you make between 200k and 1,000,000.
  • 3.9 Additional tax rate in 2013 for high income taxpayers.
  • 10 The lowest tax bracket (percent) an individual can be in other than zero.
  • 14 The number of wins the Oregon State football team will have in the 2013 season.
  • 15 The day of the month most tax returns/payments are due.
  • 18 The average wait time (minutes not hours) on phone with IRS. Debatable of course.
  • 21 The maximum number of days from filing date to get your federal refund.
  • 39.6 The highest individual income tax rate.
  • 67 The retirement age in which you can draw FULL benefits from Social Security.
  • 108 Days it took average American to earn enough to pay their annual federal tax bill.
  • 600 The amount you pay an independent contractor and have to file a form 1099 to them.
  • 1,158 The number of IRS tax forms there are.
  • 2,500 The annual amont one can defer from their paycheck into a medical flex plan.
  • 2,651 The average federal tax refund for 2012.
  • 3,833 The number of unclaimed state tax refunds in state of Oregon.
  • 3,900 Amount of one personal exemption on your individual tax return.
  • 5,000 The annual amount one can defer from their paycheck into a child care flex plan.
  • 5,500 The amount of an annual IRA contribution an individual may be eligible to make.
  • 5,700 Earnings a dependent can make before they have to pay federal income taxes.
  • 6,000 Amount of child care costs that may be eligible for tax benefits.
  • 9,350 Earnings an individual can make before they have to pay federal income taxes.
  • 17,500 Maximum amount of a 401k deferral an employee under age 50 can make.
  • 22,500 Maximum amount of a 401k deferral an employee OVER age 50 can make.
  • 73,954 Pages in the US tax code.
  • 113,700 Maximum amount of your wages that are subject to social security tax (6.2%).
  • 134,349,000 Number of individual returns filed for 2012.
  • 1,000,000,000 Estimate of unclaimed federal refund dollars that the IRS is sitting on.

So there you have some relevant and some not so relevant information to digest throughout the day. Since I deal with numbers all day every day, I thought it would be fun to share some with you. I hope the remainder of summer treats you well and for many of you, the excitement of football is in the air.

Please feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions on anything.

Thanks,

JC