U.S. individual income tax returns, 1913–2023
Thirteen national series from the IRS Statistics of Income division. For tax year 2023, Americans filed 160.6 million individual returns reporting $15.3 trillion of adjusted gross income and $2.3 trillion of total tax liability.
Modern detail — SOI Table A
Tax years 1990–2023, exact counts and dollars, in the dollars of each year.
Long history — SOI Table 1
Tax years 1913–2005. Rounded to thousands, and not extended past 2005. Shown separately from the modern table rather than spliced onto it — the two overlap from 1990 and differ only by that rounding, so a single line across the join would imply a precision neither table has.
Questions
- How many Americans file an income tax return?
- 160.6 million individual income tax returns were filed for tax year 2023, reporting $15.3 trillion of adjusted gross income and $2.3 trillion of total tax liability. A return is not a person — married couples filing jointly are one return.
- Why do the 1913–2005 and 1990–2023 figures disagree?
- They come from two different IRS tables. Table 1 is the long historical series back to 1913 and is rounded to thousands; Table A is the modern detail from 1990 and is exact. For 2005 they report 134.4 million and 134.4 million returns respectively — the same figure at two precisions, not a discrepancy. The two are shown separately here and never spliced into one line.
- Are these figures adjusted for inflation?
- No. Every number is in the dollars of its own tax year, exactly as the IRS published it. A dollar of 1913 income and a dollar of 2023 income are not comparable quantities, and this page does not silently convert between them.
- What is the difference between total income, AGI, and taxable income?
- Total income is everything reported before adjustments. Adjusted gross income subtracts above-the-line adjustments such as retirement contributions and student-loan interest. Taxable income subtracts the standard or itemized deduction from AGI — it is the figure the rate schedule actually applies to, and it is substantially smaller than total income.
- Why does the historical series stop at 2005?
- IRS Statistics of Income Table 1 has not been extended past tax year 2005. It is not missing data — the table ends there. Anything after 2005 on this page comes from Table A.
Data: U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income Division — Table 1 (historical) and Table A. pumsdata is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the IRS.