Now that taxes have been turned in (unless you filed for the 6-month extension) you can calculate what your effective tax rate was for the following year. I am only going to look at Form 1040 which is probably the most commonly used form for federal taxes. Calculating this percentage is quite simple: you take line 61 which is your total tax and divide it by line 22 which is your total income for the previous year. For 2012, mine came out to around 5%, mostly because I didn't make a lot of money so deductions and credits had a large impact on the overall percentage.
