{
  "id": "income-ordinary-counts",
  "question": "Did counts or average amounts explain the flat ordinary-dividend total?",
  "hint": "Arithmetic decomposition",
  "answer": "All-income-class ordinary dividends were nearly flat, up 0.062%, while returns reporting them rose 3.705%. The amount per reporting return therefore fell 3.512%.",
  "period": "Tax years 2022 and 2023",
  "limit": "Annual tax-return groups do not follow the same people. Qualified dividends are part of ordinary dividends; different AGI groups cannot establish an offset between categories. The cause is unresolved.",
  "status": "reviewed",
  "children": [],
  "related": [
    "income-historical-dividends"
  ],
  "findings": [
    {
      "id": "income-finding-ordinary-ratio",
      "title": "The aggregate ratio fell",
      "text": "Ordinary dividends rose from $8.953910 billion to $8.959487 billion; reporting returns rose from 413,260 to 428,570.",
      "limits": [
        "This explains the ratio arithmetically. It does not prove that new low-dividend recipients diluted an unchanged cohort.",
        "All-bracket ordinary dividends are a different comparison from $200,000-plus qualified dividends."
      ],
      "source_url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/23incyallnoagi.csv"
    }
  ],
  "plots": [],
  "sources": [
    {
      "label": "IRS county data, TY2022: All-income totals",
      "url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/22incyallnoagi.csv"
    },
    {
      "label": "IRS county data, TY2023: All-income totals",
      "url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/23incyallnoagi.csv"
    }
  ],
  "record_url": "/research/washington-income/2026-09-21/nodes/income-ordinary-counts/index.html",
  "as_of_date": "2026-09-21",
  "methods": "Aggregate amount divided by reporting-return count, compared across two annual cross-sections.",
  "lineage_ids": [
    "N2-085544fb1710"
  ],
  "publication_state": "prepared",
  "record_json_url": "/research/washington-income/2026-09-21/nodes/income-ordinary-counts/record.json"
}