The just-released Winter 2013 Statistics of Income (SOI) Bulletin reveals a continuing upward trend in individual adjusted gross income (AGI), salaries and wages and other items, the IRS reported. However, the mortgage interest deduction decreased in (tax year) 2011 compared to TY 2010.
Along with growth in salaries and wages, the winter 2013 SOI Bulletin shows an increase in retirement-related items. In 2011,the first “baby boomers” (individuals born in 1946) turned 65.
Social Security benefits increased by 5.3 percent and IRA distributions increased by 12.3 percent in TY 2011 compared to TY 2010.
INDIVIDUALTAX RETURNS
The IRS reported that taxpayers filed 145.6 million individual income tax returns for tax year 2011, representing an increase of 1.9 percent from TY 2010.
Taxable income increased 4.3 percent to $5.7 trillion, total income tax increased by 9.3 percent to $1 trillion, and total tax liability increased by 9.8 percent to $1 trillion.
Taxable Unemployment
Taxable unemployment compensation decreased 23.4 percent in TY 2011 compared to TY 2010, and the number of returns reporting taxable unemployment compensation decreased by 11.9 percent in TY 2011 compared to TY 2010.
Annual Gross income
AGI increased in TY 2011 by 3.1 percent from TY 2010, the IRS reported.
Wages and salaries, the largest component of AGI, increased 4.1 percent from $5,920.2 billion in TY 2010 to $6,161.5 billion in TY 2011.
Taxable pensions and annuities, the second-largest component of AGI, increased 4 percent from $567.7 billion in TY 2010 to $590.4 billion in TY 2011.
Taxable Deductions
Total deductions (the sum of standard deductions and total itemized deductions) increased 1.5 percent from TY 2010 to TY 2011. Approximately 66 percent of returns for TY 2011 claimed the standard deduction.
Taxes paid accounted for the largest deduction, followed by interest paid. The mortgage interest deduction accounted for $358.8 billion and 96.5 percent of the total interest paid deduction.
However, the IRS reported that the mortgage interest deduction decreased 7.3 percent in TY 2011 compared to TY 2010; it also attributed an uptick in use of the standard deduction in part to that trend.
