40.1% of American Tax Filers “Lucky Duckies” in 2010

There’s a new Statistics of Income Bulletin out, with preliminary numbers from the filing season showing the number and percentage of “lucky duckies” who file tax returns showing that they owed no federal income tax all year:

Tax YearNumber of Zero-Tax FilersZero-Tax Filers as a Percent of All Filers
45,700,00033.0%
46,600,00032.6%
51,600,00036.3%
58,600,00041.7%
58,400,00040.1%

You’re reading that right: 40.1 percent of all households who filed tax returns last year owed no federal income tax at all for the entire tax year. That doesn’t mean they didn’t owe any extra on , but that they didn’t owe any federal income tax at all on the income they earned in . If you paid your income taxes you should feel like a chump.


In other news: