This repository contains all working files for a project to develop validated input files for use in Tax-Calculator.
For Tax-Calculator results generated when using these TMD input files, see this folder.
The current TMD version is 2.1.2, which was released on May 29, 2026, and is the same as TMD version 2.1.1 except that Tax-Calculator version 6.7.0 (instead of 6.6.1 or 6.6.2) is used to generate the TMD files. This new Tax-Calculator version uses a more refined refundable credit claiming logic, which causes minor changes in the TMD input data files generated by this repo (even after some recalibration of the TMD data generation logic). Tax-Calculator pull request 3085 shows the small differences in baseline policy results when using the new TMD 2.1.2 input data files.
When using version 2.1.2 to generate sub-national weights, there will be (presumably small) differences from the sub-national weights generated using earlier versions; however, the sub-national weights fingerprints have not yet been updated.
The earlier TMD 2.0.0 version introduced the following significant improvements:
- generate national, state, and Congressional district, input files for 2022: #470 #471 #472 #473 #474
- improve the selection of CPS tax units to represent nonfilers: #438
- vastly improve the reweighting algorithm: #416
- impute values for three variables used in new OBBBA deductions: #397
If on Windows, it is strongly recommended that you use Microsoft's free Windows Subsystem for Linux to install the free Ubuntu Linux operating system, within which you can download the repository code. If not on Windows, there is nothing to do at this stage.
In order to use the code in this repository, you need to license the
2015 PUF from IRS/SOI. Once you have done that, you will have two
CSV-formatted files from IRS/SOI: puf_2015.csv and
demographics_2015.csv.
To generate the TMD files from the PUF files, do this:
- Copy the two 2015 PUF files to the
tmd/storage/inputfolder - Install the SIPP files described in
tmd/storage/input/SIPP24/README.md - Install the CEX files described in
tmd/storage/input/CEX23/README.md - Run
make datain the repository's top-level folder
The make data command creates and tests the three national
tmd*csv* data files, which are located in the tmd/storage/output
folder. Read this
documentation
on how to use these three files with Tax-Calculator. Also, you can
look at the tests in this repository to see Python code that uses the
TMD files with Tax-Calculator.
The repository also produces per-area weight files that adapt the national TMD microdata to a specific state or Congressional district. The records do not change; only the weights do, so that weighted sums and targeted distributional values match state-level (or CD-level) totals from IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) and other published sources.
See tmd/areas/README.md for how to build
the weights, what files you get, and how to use them — with or
without Tax-Calculator.