USA TODAY US Edition

How does your income stack up?

- Dan Caplinger

Another tax season has ended, and unless you’ve had to ask for an extension to get some more time to file your final return, you can take a well-earned break from thinking about your taxes for at least a little while.

Yet one thing that inevitably comes up when you’re adding up all your income and deductions to come up with how much tax you’ll owe — or how big your refund will be — is how your income compares to what your peers make.

It’s too early for the IRS to know what everyone reported on the tax returns that they’ve just filed, but informatio­n from 2016 tax returns is already available.

Out of about 150 million returns, more than 30% have adjusted gross incomes of less than $20,000. As you’d expect, those returns pay relatively little in tax — just $6.6 billion, for an average of less than $150 per return. About 60% of taxpayers have adjusted gross income of less than $50,000, while only 1 in 6 makes $100,000 or more. As income levels rise, the amount of tax goes up dramatical­ly. Taxpayers reporting more than $250,000 in adjusted gross income make up less than 3% of returns, but they paid more than half of all taxes during the year.

Those numbers are consistent with a progressiv­e tax system, although they also lend support to the inequality of income distributi­on among U.S. taxpayers. As you reflect on your recently filed tax returns, keep these numbers in mind as you figure out where you fall on the income spectrum.

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