The Urban Institute creates annual reports called "Profiles of Individual Charitable Contributions by State, YYYY,"
to track trends in individual income and itemized giving for charitable purposes. The data may not match the totals
in the IRS SOI Spring Bulletin preliminary report. The reason is that the Profiles use actual numbers (not estimates)
based on the SOI IMF (Individual Master File) system where the full number of individual income tax returns filed in
a given calendar year is included, while the SOI Spring 2008 bulletin figures are estimated numbers based on a sample
of individual income tax returns filed during the calendar year.
For example, the SOI Bulletin Spring 2008, "Individual Income Tax Returns, Preliminary Data, 2006," reports a total
of $172 billion in itemized charitable deductions for tax year 2005. The "Profiles of Individual Charitable
Contributions by State, 2005" show a total of $181 billion for the same tax year 2005. The $172 billion is an
estimate based on a sample of 231,171 individual income tax returns filed during calendar year 2006. The Profiles use
the full number of individual income tax returns filed in calendar year 2006 (as of January 2007).