US corporate tax receipts exceed individual income tax

Where things stand

FY2026 is settled, and it is a NO. Treasury published the September 2026 Final Monthly Treasury Statement on 16 Oct 2026. I pulled MTS Table 4 for record_date 2026-09-30 from the Fiscal Data API (https://api.fiscaldata.treasury.gov/services/api/fiscal_service/v1/accounting/mts/mts_table_4?filter=record_date:eq:2026-09-30). Net receipts were:

• Individual income taxes: $2,845.53B
• Corporation income taxes: $381.41B

Corporate receipts were about 13.4% of individual receipts. Individual receipts rose about 7%; corporate receipts fell about $70B because of the expensing provisions in last year's tax law (CNBC, 16 Oct 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/16/us-budget-deficit-2026.html). So the eligible fiscal years left are FY2027 through FY2031. Each one's result first appears in the mid-October final statement, which means essentially all the chance of YES falls in the October–December quarters.

Base rate (computed)

I used OMB Historical Table 2.1 from the FY2027 Budget (April 2026; https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/hist02z1_fy2027.xlsx) and added the FY2026 actuals.

• History: corporate receipts exceeded individual receipts only in FY1935–36 and FY1938–43, when the individual tax reached few people. Individual receipts have been larger every year since FY1944, 83 years in a row.
• Peak ratios since then: the highest corporate-to-individual ratio after 1945 was 0.76 (FY1952). The highest since 1970 was 0.36.
• Size of the jump needed: I took 80 annual changes in the log of the ratio (FY1947–2026). Their standard deviation is 0.177. The largest one-year rise was ×1.49 (1984) and the largest five-year rise was ×2.23 (2001→2006). A YES needs ×7.46 within five fiscal years.
• Simulations: resampling the historical annual changes produced 0 hits in 2 million five-year paths. A fat-tailed t-distribution fitted to the same changes (about 4.5 degrees of freedom, zero drift) gives about 0.03%.
• Official projections: OMB's own estimates keep the ratio at 0.142–0.153 for FY2027–31. In its February 2026 outlook, CBO projects corporate taxes falling from 8.6% to 7% of receipts (summarised by the Bipartisan Policy Center).

Paths to YES (structural breaks only)

1. Abolishing or gutting the individual income tax. In his February 2026 State of the Union, Trump said tariffs could "substantially replace" the income tax. Analysts (AEI, CNBC, 3 Mar and 27 Feb 2026) say that is impossible, since the individual tax raises about $2.85 trillion. The Supreme Court struck down many of the emergency tariffs in February 2026, and tariff refunds followed. Democrats are favoured to win the House on 3 Nov 2026 (NPR, 6 Oct; Pew, 15 Oct), which effectively blocks this through 2028. Even exempting everyone under $150k would leave individual receipts about five times corporate receipts.
2. An AI shock that pushes income from labour to capital. Even Yale Budget Lab's "rapid" scenario (July 2026) has the labour share falling only to 52% by 2030. RAND (Aug 2026) finds that AI-driven corporate profits would not offset lost labour taxes unless corporate tax rates rose sharply. Full expensing of AI investment holds down corporate taxable income, and shareholders' capital gains and dividends are taxed in the individual category. A flip would need extreme labour displacement, a large corporate tax increase, and receipts that catch up despite payment lags, all by FY2031.
3. Other routes. Reclassification, tariff "dividends" paid as refunds, a recession or a war do not work. Refundable-credit payouts are mostly recorded as outlays, and recessions cut corporate receipts more than individual ones.

Forecast

The per-quarter chances (hazards) are placed in the quarters when each final statement comes out: about 0.01% for FY2027, 0.02% for FY2028, 0.03% for FY2029, 0.06% for FY2030 and 0.1% for FY2031. They rise with the AI and policy tail, and there is about 0.01% for leftover misresolution risk in Q4 2026. That accumulates to about 0.23% by the end of 2031.

Strongest case against this estimate: under very aggressive AI timelines (transformative AI around 2028–29), mass white-collar displacement plus a populist "tax the robots" law could shrink wage taxes and swell corporate taxes. Even then, the corporate category would need to roughly triple to quadruple while individual receipts fall by 40% or more, all inside about two years. That keeps the tail well under 1%, and I would take 300:1 odds against it.

Question. By the last day of each quarter, has the US Department of the Treasury or the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reported that federal corporate income tax receipts exceeded federal individual income tax receipts for a completed fiscal year?

Definitions.

• Fiscal year: the full US federal fiscal year, October 1 through September 30, designated by the year in which it ends. The Observation period convention applies; FY2026 is the earliest eligible fiscal year.
• Corporate and individual income tax receipts: the federal budget receipt categories labeled “Corporation Income Taxes” (or “Corporation income taxes”) and “Individual Income Taxes,” respectively, measured in nominal dollars net of refunds on the government's budget receipts basis. Use the total individual category, including withheld and nonwithheld receipts. Taxes on pass-through business income remain in whichever category the reporting agency assigns them.
• Exceeded: corporate receipts are strictly greater than individual receipts for the same fiscal year in the same release. Use the most precise published amounts in that release; equality after rounding is insufficient unless the agency explicitly states that corporate receipts exceeded individual receipts.

Resolves YES if an eligible Treasury or OMB publication reports actual receipts satisfying the comparison. A full-year report of actual results may count even if labeled preliminary or subsequently revised. A revision of an eligible fiscal year's actual receipts may first trigger YES. Either agency's qualifying report is sufficient; agreement between the agencies is not required. No attribution to AI, particular companies, or a particular tax-policy change is required.

Resolves NO / Exclusions. Projections, budget estimates of future receipts, annualized figures, calendar-year totals, and partial-fiscal-year totals do not count. Gross collections before refunds do not count. Payroll taxes, tariffs, excise taxes, and other receipts paid by corporations are not added to corporate income taxes. Dividends or proceeds from government ownership or nationalization do not count unless officially classified as corporate income tax receipts. Publications solely repeating or revising fiscal years ending before the opening date do not count. Resolve NO at a horizon if no qualifying publication has appeared by that date.

Resolving source. Treasury or OMB official publications only, a narrower source rule than Public confirmation (A2). Primary sources are Treasury's September Final Monthly Treasury Statement, Table 4, “Receipts of the U.S. Government,” full-fiscal-year net “Receipts” columns (MTS reports and data); and OMB's Historical Tables, Table 2.1, “Receipts by Source,” actual-year entries (Historical Tables). Other official Treasury or OMB tables, reports, or statements explicitly reporting the same actual full-year comparison also qualify. Apply the Resolution window and Resolution date (A3) conventions; a later revision does not undo a qualifying YES.