Every number, and where it came from
This page exists so that anyone who wants to check us can. Where a figure is a government estimate we say so. Where it is an advocacy estimate, we do not use it at all.
of your life, day and night, spent filing taxes
IRS taxpayer burden model (13 hrs/return, TY2024) via NTU Foundation, over 60 filings from age 20 to 79.
Counted as continuous 24-hour days — the same way a jail sentence is counted. Measured in working days it is far larger; we use the smaller, stricter number.
the average American spends filing, every year
IRS taxpayer burden model, tax year 2024, printed in the Form 1040 instructions; compiled by NTU Foundation.
TY2025 estimate eases to 12 hours.
the average American pays to file, every year
IRS taxpayer burden model, TY2024, via NTU Foundation.
in filing fees over a lifetime
$290 x 60 filings, in constant dollars.
About $102,500 if that money were invested instead at a 5% real return. The 5% assumption is ours.
what the IRS itself estimated it costs to do your taxes for you, per year
IRS Report to Congress, May 2023: $249M to run Direct File at scale, against 25 million users.
The high end of the IRS's own range.
if you work for yourself
IRS burden model, 24 hrs/return for filers with business income (29% of filers), TY2024: 24 x 60 = 1,440 hours = exactly 60 days.
True for the TY2024 estimate. The TY2025 estimate of 21 hours gives 52 days.
America spends on individual income tax filing every year
NTU Foundation, February 2026, Table 1 — individual income tax only.
Equivalent to confining about 243,000 people around the clock for a full year, every year.
of the 70% of taxpayers eligible for IRS Free File actually used it
GAO-22-105236, 2022.
of those hours that pre-filling can actually take back
Goodman, Lim, Sacerdote & Whitten, NBER w30008 (2022): 42-48% of returns are accurately pre-populatable with current information returns.
Pre-filling does not zero the burden out. We say so.
What we are careful about
The jail comparison. Thirty-two days is counted in continuous twenty-four-hour days, the same way a sentence is served. Counted in eight-hour working days the figure is more than four times larger. We use the smaller number on purpose, because it is the only one that compares like with like.
Two months only if you work for yourself. Filers with business income average twenty-four hours a year, which over sixty filings is exactly sixty days. That is a real figure for 29% of filers under the tax-year-2024 estimate, and we do not apply it to everyone.
Pre-filling does not fix everything. The research says 42-48% of returns can be accurately pre-populated with the information the IRS already receives. Complicated returns stay complicated. We are not claiming otherwise.
National figures are easy to get wrong. The widely quoted 7.1 billion hours covers all federal tax compliance, including corporate returns. Individual income tax filing is 2.1 billion hours. We use the smaller, correct one.
The industry did not invent the income tax. The 1040 dates to 1913. What the record shows is twenty-five years of spending to keep filing difficult and to stop the government offering an alternative.