IRS Migration Data & Profiles From the Missouri Census Data Center

Track Migration Via Tax Returns IRS matches households across consecutive tax years Able to determine if a return that came from County A in year N comes from a different county the following year. If 500 returns filed from LA County, CA in 2004 are matched to returns in 2005 from Clark co, NV in 2005 – what does it mean?

Background IRS has produced their county-to-county summary files for years. These are used by the FSCPE as a key input for the migration portion of the annual county estimates. Files are not freely available; IRS uses them as a cash cow.

telegram.com/ARCIms/Maps/clt/2007/irsmig.asp Charlotte Observer Creates online Access

Displayed Maps and Tables Like This

Inspired by the Charlotte Observer site… We (Missouri Census Data Center) contacted the IRS and placed our order for data back to 1999/2000 and thru 2004/2005. Paid several hundred $. Received a cd- rom with lots and lots of Excel files. Two xls files per county: 1 for in-movers and 1 for out-movers.

We Converted the xls Files Access the resulting data collection at Original data in csv format saved here as well as the xls files -- for Mo only. Usinmig9900 thru usinmig0506 are the huge datasets with inmigration. Corresponding usoutmig datasets have out-migration data.

Datasets are Nice But Reports… Are what everybody wants. So we needed to create an application that would turn the raw data into something users could easily access and interpret. We created a profile application that displayed all relevant data for a single county – the “IRS Migration Profile”.

Profile Details Report title identifies the county; subtitle indicates the years. Each line of report summarizes implied migration “flows” both into and out of the profile county. The “Migration Flow Area” can be another county or some larger total (such as total or total domestic).

The LA Migration Profile Tells Us… Under “Migration Into…/ # Returns” in first row we find 100,584. This is the total # of tax returns filed in LA county in 2005 that were NOT linked to a return in that county in So this is a proxy for in-migration at the HH level. The 165,767 # Exemptions figure is just the total exemptions reported on those 100,584 returns. $23,179 was the median (middle) gross income fig for those 100,584 returns.

Migration Out of Los Angeles CA These 4 items (rightmost columns of profile) track “out-migration”. Based on returns filed in LA county in 2004 that were found in a different county or country in It does not include people who did not file in 2005 (such as people who died).

About the Report Only migration flows of 10 or more are reported on the IRS files and hence in these reports. A parm can be specified to raise this threshold. I.e. you can specify you only want to see data for areas where there at least 40 total flows. Gross flows = #Returns Into + #Returns Out of. The report is sorted by descending Gross flows.

Generating a Report Access the main menu page at bin/uexplore?/pub/data/irsmig/Migration_Profiles bin/uexplore?/pub/data/irsmig/Migration_Profiles bin/uexplore?/pub/data/irsmig/Migration_Profiles To locate this URL go to the Missouri Census Data Center home page and do a search on “IRS profile”; follow the “What’s New” link. Select a state first. Then on the application page choose the county, the year(s) and, if needed, a higher threshold. Click the Generate Report button.

Note Also… Profiles/ is an alternate URL. If you fail to choose a county you will get a report showing state totals only – not very interesting. If you fail to choose a county you will get a report showing state totals only – not very interesting. You can also find a link to these reports using our applinks interface; the URL is of the form: bin/applinks?&st= &co= Where is the 2-digits fips state code and is the fips county code. The irsmig_profile entry will be the last on the resulting menu page. You can also find a link to these reports using our applinks interface; the URL is of the form: bin/applinks?&st= &co= Where is the 2-digits fips state code and is the fips county code. The irsmig_profile entry will be the last on the resulting menu page.

More Notes The latest year of data (based on tax years 2005 & 2006) did not have any data on gross income. Not sure if gone forever. IRS was reluctant to sell us the 05/06 data (because we were putting it on the web.) See article by Emily Groos, IRS, at

Questions? John Blodgett John Blodgett