161 – IRS's Statistics of Income at 100: New Directions
Improving Techniques to Use Panel Data to Produce Cross-Sectional Estimates
Yan K. Liu
Statistics of Income, Internal Revenue Service
Michael Strudler
Statistics of Income, Internal Revenue Service
Janette Wilson
Statistics of Income, Internal Revenue Service
Young Lim
Statistics of Income, Internal Revenue Service
The Statistics of Income Division (SOI) of the IRS started a panel sample of individual returns in 2007 for longitudinal analyses. SOI edits Sales of Capital Assets (SOCA) transactions reported on individual tax returns for this panel. This panel sample, together with a small yearly refreshment sample has also been used for cross-sectional SOCA estimations. This has allowed us to get annual SOCA estimates with a small expense every year. The cross-sectional weights are derived using weight calibration method. The budget allows SOI to select and edit a SOCA cross-sectional sample once every five years, most recently in 2012. This paper compares the 2012 SOCA estimations based on the panel sample to those based on the 2012 SOCA cross-sectional sample and learns how to better weight the panel returns for SOCA cross-section purposes.