April 15 of every year is a day that most adults in the United States can relate to—the day that federal and state income taxes are due. Although there have been several attempts by Congress and the Internal Revenue Service over the past few years to simplify the income tax process, many people still have a difficult time completing their tax returns properly. To draw attention to this problem, a West Coast newspaper has asked 50 certified public accountant (CPA) firms to complete the same tax return for a hypothetical head of household. The CPA firms have their tax experts complete the return with the objective of determining the total federal income tax liability. The data in the file Taxes show the taxes owed as figured by each of the 50 CPA firms. Theoretically, they should all come up with the same taxes owed.
Based on these data, write a short article for the paper that describes the results of this experiment. Include in your article such descriptive statistics as the mean, median, and standard deviation. You might consider using percentiles, the coefficient of variation, and Tchebysheff’s theorem to help describe the data.