donboyd5/synpuf

Is there a practical upper income limit for a synthesized PUF?

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We have been asked to synthesize a version of the PUF with AGI <= $250k. As we know, a lot of income tax liability is in upper income ranges. The graph below quantifies this. It shows the cumulative distribution of weighted total income tax (e06500) in the 2011 PUF, excluding the 4 aggregate records, by AGI, using a log10 scale.

As you can see, if we cut the file at $250k AGI, we would capture only about 56% of total income tax. If we want to get 90% of the income tax, we'd have to go up to about $3.2 million AGI. A $1 million cutoff would get us about 80% of total income tax liability. (All of these numbers are in 2011 dollars, so they would be bigger in today's dollars.)

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Of possible interest to @MaxGhenis, @feenberg, @andersonfrailey, @MattHJensen.