I’m finishing up the first pass on my tax return, with some estimates in because I want to know how badly I screwed up this year.
So, at the end, there is a little “Compare to US Averages” column where you can compare your salary, taxable interest, dividends, etc. to that of the “average” US taxpayer. And GUESS WHAT?
Guess what the National Average salary is?
$426,574. How many super earners do there have to be to bring up the median wage of $59,228 to an “average” of $426,575????
www.fidelity.com/…
citation to median us salary, I’ve seen numbers +/- about 5-6k
How about “average” net capital gain of $488,215!!??!
Seriously? how many Americans have *any* capital gain? Quick googling gives me no answer for this, but even in a pretty high-end CPA firm, you’ll see probably half the clients have no investments held outside of tax-deferred accounts.
“Average” charitable contribution deduction: $67,488.
This is crazy. The US is so, so, so very fucked. Can I say fucked? it’s fucked...fuckity fuckity fuck fuck fucked.
EDIT: yes, it’s the difference between “median” — the glob that’s globbiest in the middle, and “average”. If you have a number set: 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 5637 “median” is “2” but “average” is 807. And, addressing another comment, I doubt very much that the folks with wages of 440k are doing their taxes on TurboTax.
