This section contains selected papers given at the 2006 annual meetings of the American Statistical Association conference. These papers were written by members of the Statistics of Income Division of IRS, and others.

The views expressed here are those of the authors and are not necessarily the official positions of the Internal Revenue Service.

All papers are available as PDF files. A free Adobe Acrobat Reader is available for download, if needed.

Citations are included in the papers. For more information about a paper, please send us an email message.

 

Analysis of the Distributions of Income, Taxes, and Payroll Taxes via Cross Section and Panel Data, 1979–2004 PDF
Michael Strudler, Tom Petska, and Lori Hentz, Statistics of Income, IRS, and Ryan Petska, Quantitative Economics and Statistics, Ernst and Young LLP

Different approaches have been used to measure the distribution of individual income over time. Survey data have been compiled with comprehensive enumeration, but underreporting of incomes, inadequate coverage at the highest income levels and omission of a key income type jeopardize the validity of results. Administrative records, such as income tax returns, may be less susceptible to underreporting of income but exclude certain nontaxable income types and can be inconsistent in periods when the tax law has been changed.

Related Tables XLS (Excel)

Application of an Evolutionary Algorithm to Multivariate Optimal Allocation in Stratified Sample Designs PDF
Charles D. Day, Statistics of Income, IRS

Biological evolution can be viewed as a process of optimizing a species to (or increasing its fitness for) its environment. Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs), sometimes called Genetic Algorithms after their most common variant, adopt biological evolution as a model for computation. These algorithms are used most often for finding approximate solutions to computationally intractable optimization problems. In this paper, an evolutionary algorithm is applied to the problem of multivariate optimal allocation in stratified sample designs.

Customer Satisfaction Initiatives at IRS’s Statistics of Income: Using Surveys to Improve Customer Service PDF
Ruth Schwartz and Beth Kilss, Statistics of Income, IRS

IRS’s Statistics of Income (SOI) Division conducts statistical studies on the operations of tax laws and publishes annual reports, including the quarterly SOI Bulletin, which includes statistics produced from tax and information returns. SOI’s Statistical Information Services (SIS) office responds to thousands of data and information requests annually by providing SOI data along with technical assistance. To ensure that customer needs are being met through the SIS office and through its flagship publication, SOI has been measuring customer satisfaction for both via customer satisfaction surveys.

Performance Measurement within the Statistics of Income Division PDF
Kevin Cecco, Statistics of Income, IRS

Developing performance measures continues to play an important role for many of the Federal statistical agencies. Federal statistical agencies produce critical data to inform public and private decision makers about a range of topics of interest, including the economy, the population, and other pertinent statistics. The ability of statistical agencies to make appropriate decisions about the statistical data they produce depends critically on the availability of relevant, innovative, and timely performance measures.

Social Security Taxes, Social Security Benefits, and Social Security Benefits Taxation, 2003 PDF
Peter Sailer, Kevin Pierce, and Evgenia Lomize, Statistics of Income, IRS

For most of its 90-year existence, the Statistics of Income (SOI) Division of the Internal Revenue Service and its predecessor organizations have used data provided by taxpayers on Forms 1040 to fulfill the legal mandate to produce statistics on the operation of the individual income tax system. It was not until Tax Year 1989 that SOI started using the Information Returns Master File (IRMF), which contains electronic documents filed by the payers of income to individuals, to add further details to the tax return information.

The Tax Year 1999–2003 Individual Income Tax Return Panel: A First Look at the Data PDF
Michael E. Weber, Statistics of Income, IRS

This paper represents the Statistics of Income (SOI) Division’s first release of data from its Tax Year 1999 Panel of Individual Income Tax Returns. A previous ASA paper explained the history and development of this panel so that only a brief review of the panel’s history and design will be provided in this paper.

Tying Website Performance to Mission Achievement in the Federal Government PDF
Diane M. Milleville, Statistics of Income, IRS

As the World Wide Web (WWW) continues to expand, both in size and in how it is accessed, so does the federal government’s dependence on it as a gateway for reaching the American public, who increasingly relies on the Web to obtain information. The role of the WWW in how federal agencies interact with their customers has changed dramatically over the years.


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