Robin SmithMost of us have been busy preparing our federal taxes to comply with today’s IRS filing deadline. While busily complying with the laws of our government about the taxation of our earnings, we might miss the fact that it won’t be until Sunday that American workers will be able to celebrate their “Tax Freedom Day” – the day on which they begin keeping the money they earn.
The nonprofit Tax Foundation has published its annual report noting that Americans who lawfully comply with the requirement to pay income taxes will have essentially spent their entire earnings for 114 days of this year covering their burden to fund government – to the tune of $3.34 trillion in federal levies and $1.64 trillion to state and local taxes.
Incidentally, this sum of almost $5 trillion comprises 31 percent of America’s national income and excludes the annual federal borrowing and interest on the debt, which is scored in bureaucratic accounting as “future taxes owed.” If America’s “loans” were included to keep our nation’s addiction to spending fed, the Tax Freedom Day would be pushed back to May 10. So, through accounting gimmicks, we aren’t told that America’s workers hold the burden of our government’s spending for 130 days of our 365-day calendar.
The national average literally breaks down as 46 days to pay your income taxes, 26 more days to cover your payroll confiscation, then 15 days for sales and excise tariffs, 11 days for property taxes, nine days for corporate tolls and the remaining seven days to cover miscellaneous taxes that might include death taxes and a variety of local fees.
The good news is if you live in Tennessee, because the state imposes no income tax, the Tax Freedom Day was April 6 – number two in the nation. Georgia workers began keeping their earnings on April 17, ranked 20th in America, and our Alabama neighbors were number eight in their Tax Freedom Day on April 8.