Preliminary Data on 2008 Individual Income Tax Returns
Some Components of AGI Showed Increases, Including the Largest Component of AGI, Salaries and Wages…
For Tax Year 2008, taxpayers filed 142.4 million U.S. individual income tax returns, a decrease of 0.5 percent from the 143.0 million returns filed for 2007. (1) For the first time since Tax Year 2002, Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) and several other notable items showed a decline. AGI decreased from 2007 by 3.7 percent to $8.2 trillion for 2008. Taxable income decreased 5.1 percent to $5.6 trillion; total income tax decreased by 6.2 percent to $1.0 trillion; and total tax liability fell by 6.0 percent to just under $1.1 trillion. However, despite the decreases in income and other taxes, the alternative minimum tax rose 6.3 percent to $22.2 billion for 2008.
Figure A shows some of the key components that contributed to the decline in AGI from 2007. Net capital gains decreased 40.4 percent, from $749.1 billion in 2007 to $446.6 billion in 2008, capital gain distributions (part of net capital gains) decreased 74.6 percent to $22.0 billion. Increases in losses associated with business income were reported for Tax Year 2008 by partnership and S corporations (49.8 percent), business sole proprietorships (11.3 percent), and farms (7.4 percent). For the first two, this contributed to decreases in net income less losses compared to 2007 of 12.5 percent for partnerships and S corporations and 5.4 percent for business sole proprietorships.
Full article: Preliminary Data on 2008 Individual Income Tax Returns
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Tags: 2008, Adjusted Gross Income, AGI, Individual Income Tax Returns, Proprietorships, Tax Liability, Tax Payers, Taxable Income
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