An important staring point for any project is deciding what browsers you need to support. If your client or boss insists against your best advice to support ie version 9 and below, you most likely will have to spend a fair chunk of your effort on hacks.
According to the W3Counter’s browser statistics, in July 2014 ie had a 21% global market share, however only about 6.6% of all ie browsers are ie 9, and only 4% are ie 8.
While ie 8 and ie 9 combined still represent 10% of all ie browsers, they only represent about 3% of browsers overall.
Is it really worth your time supporting the rapidly declining 3%?
The writing is on the wall.
Microsoft recently announced they plan to end support for most of their older browsers:
After January 12, 2016, only the most recent version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates.
At this point I am ready to abandon ie 9 and below unless someone makes me an offer I can’t refuse.