IRS News Release  
March 21, 2003

IRS Issues 2002 Data Book

WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service has issued the new 2002 IRS Data Book, which includes a variety of numbers related to tax administration. These range from numbers of tax returns filed to examination and collection numbers. Among the highlights:

  • For Fiscal Year 2002, gross collections totaled $2 trillion from 227 million returns filed. The total amount of refunds issued was $284 billion, of which $210 billion were for individual income tax returns.
  • The Data Book details the increasing success of IRS e-file. Of the 131 million individual income tax returns filed, 47 million were e-filed during 2002, up from 40 million reported in the 2001 Data Book.

To access the FY 2002 IRS Data Book from the IRS Website – www.irs.gov – click on “Tax Stats” in the upper left-hand corner and select “IRS Data Book” under “Statistical Publications.” The complete 2002 report appears in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Also, each of the 32 tables and related footnotes appears separately in Excel version 4 format.

Previous reports and data are available following the Fiscal Year 2002 data. The Data Book is published annually with statistical tables and organizational information on a fiscal-year basis.

Tables in the Data Book are grouped according to the following categories: returns filed, tax collections, and refunds; examination coverage; delinquency and enforcement activity; appeals; criminal investigation; employee plan and tax-exempt organization information; taxpayer assistance; information reporting; penalties; Chief Counsel activities; and administrative costs and personnel summaries.

Published copies of the Fiscal Year 2002 IRS Data Book, Publication 55B, will be available by mid-April 2003 from the U.S. Government Printing Office. To obtain a copy, write to the Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954, or call (202) 512-1-800 (voicemail) or (202) 512-2250 (fax).

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