During the last five years what has been the change (if any) in the
percentage of taxes withheld from employees to total taxes collected
by the US Federal Government ?

Hello ragmop,

According to the Internal Revenue Service, for fiscal year 2002,
individual income taxes withheld by employers constituted 37.2 percent
of all gross internal revenue tax collections in the United States.

Five years earlier, for fiscal year 1997, the figure was 35.7 percent.

I obtained these figures from the Tax Statistics portion of the IRS
web site:  http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html .

The figure for fiscal year 2002 appears in this table:

"Table 1 -- Summary of Internal Revenue Collections, by Type of Tax,
Fiscal Years 2001 and 2002"
Internal Revenue Service
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/02db01co.xls

This table is also part of a larger publication that comes in PDF
format:

"2002 Data Book" [page 8]
Internal Revenue Service
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/02databk.pdf

The figure for fiscal year 1997 is contained in a table that you can
download from this page:

"IRS Data Books 1995 to 1997" [under "Fiscal Year 1997 - Summary:
Internal Revenue Collections, 1996-1997. 1997 IRS Annual Data Book.
EXE includes Lotus 123 ver. 1a, and Excel ver. 4. January 1999;
Revised May 2003."]
Internal Revenue Service
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=97216,00.html

In order to view the table, you will need to save and unzip the files,
and view the Excel file (97CR01CO) with an Excel viewer.

Please let me know if you have any difficulties viewing any of this
data.  Also, though I feel confident based on your precise question
that I have found the correct data, please let me know if you were
looking for a different statistic than the one I have presented.

- justaskscott

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Request for Answer Clarification by ragmop-ga on 30 Jun 2003 13:39 PDT

I think that you have honorably answered the precise question - what I
actually wanted to know was the change in ratio between withheld taxes
and direct taxes paid by corporations over that period. I did not know
that I could get access to such rapid and expert help. I think it is
fair to pay additional for the answer to the additional question.

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Clarification of Answer by justaskscott-ga on 30 Jun 2003 14:15 PDT

If I understand your request for clarification correctly, I think that
the same charts provide an answer.  In fiscal year 2002, withheld
taxes were (in thousands of dollars) 750,823,219, while taxes paid by
corporations were 211,437,773, a ratio of 3.55:1.  In fiscal year
1997, the figures were, respectively, 580,274,585 and 204,492,336, a
ratio of 2:84 to 1.

As far as I'm concerned, you don't need to pay extra for this
question.  I had already found these tables, so I did not have to do
much additional work.

The answers were clear, timely and documented. More can not be
expected. This is a great service.