Top Ten U.S. Tax Facts

For better or worse, taxes are something working Americans just can't avoid. But how much do you really know about taxes? Here's a list of facts that might enlighten you.

1. The Gettysburg address is 269 words, the Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words, and the Holy Bible is only 773,000 words. However, the tax law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913, to 7 million words today.

2. There are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions.

3. Even the easiest form, the 1040E has 33 pages in instructions, and all in fine print.

4. The IRS sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth.

5. Nearly 300,000 trees are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the IRS forms and instructions.

6. American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year, more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.

7. The burden of compliance is the equivalent to a staff of 3 million people working full time for a year, just to comply with the taxes on individuals and businesses.

8. The IRS employs 114,000 people; that's twice as many as the CIA and five times more than the FBI.

9. 60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.

10. Taxes eat up 38.2% of the average family's income; that's more than for food, clothing and shelter combined. (This is just the Federal Tax - it does not include state, local, property, sales tax, etc.!)