Small Area Income & Poverty Estimates

SAIPE - Model Input Data

IRS data

The aggregate income data available on this site have been approved for public release by the Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income Division (IRS/SOI). Tax return data on individuals is protected by Title 26 U.S.C. and is never published. The data include:

• Total Exemptions - the sum of primary, secondary, and dependent children exemptions claimed on individual tax returns.
• Poor Exemptions - the subset of total exemptions for which the adjusted gross income falls below the official poverty threshold for a family of the size implied by the number of exemptions on the return.
• Age Exemptions - the number of exemptions on IRS returns due to either the spouse or the filer being 65 or older.
• Poor Age Exemptions - the subset of age exemptions for which the adjusted gross income falls below the official poverty threshold for a family of the size implied by the number of exemptions on the return.
• Child Exemptions - the number of exemptions on IRS returns identified as child exemptions (including children at or away from home).
• Poor Child Exemptions - the subset of child exemptions for which the adjusted gross income falls below the official poverty threshold for a family of the size implied by the number of exemptions on the return.
• Total Exemptions under age 65 - algebraic operation of total exemptions minus age exemptions as defined above.
• Poor Exemptions under age 65- algebraic operation of poor exemptions minus poor age exemptions as defined above.
• Mean AGI - aggregate adjusted gross income divided by the number of returns. (Foreign, uncoded (area- unclassifiable), zero exemption, and zero exemption dependent returns are excluded from this calculation.)
• Median AGI - the middle value of the aggregate adjusted gross income. (Foreign, uncoded (area- unclassifiable), zero exemption, and zero exemption dependent returns are excluded from this calculation.)

Tax files for 1989 through 1998 contain data derived from returns filed through the first 9 months of the year following that tax year; the tax files for subsequent years contain the returns for all 12 months. Data users need to be aware that these data may not match data from other sources due to differences in definitions, and that the SAIPE program only uses tax returns for the relevant income year (IRS/SOI include all tax returns filed in a calendar year in their tabulations, regardless of the reference income year). Also note that starting in 1995, total exemptions include children living away from home (prior to 1995, only children at home were counted), exclude parent exemptions, and exclude "other" exemptions. This changes all variables that employ the number of exemptions in their calculation. In addition, tax returns claiming no exemptions -- i.e., those who are claimed as dependents on other returns -- are excluded from the calculation of all variables (except median income). For more information on how the SAIPE program uses the IRS data, please go to federal income tax returns.