It’s Tax Freedom Day—theoretically, the first day of the year that beleaguered taxpayers can stop working for government and start working for themselves.
According to the Tax Policy Center, Tax Freedom Day arrives four days later than last year due to higher federal income and corporate taxes. The average American works 107 days to pay government back for all its services. The rest of those days, of course, are yours to do with as you wish. For now.
To calculate what day the holiday will fall any particular year, the Tax Policy Center divides all taxes collected by government by all the income earned in that year.
The latest ever Tax Freedom Day was on May 1, 2000.
In 1900, Tax Freedom Day was on January 22.
Tax freedom, of course, does not come to all of us simultaneously. Due to our sharply progressive taxation system, Connecticut celebrates the latest of any state, on May 5th, while New York and New Jersey follow on the May 1.
The state realizing tax freedom the earliest is Tennessee, on March 31, followed by Louisiana and Mississippi on April 1.
If the federal government taxed us enough to pay for the $1.014 trillion of deficit spending it did last year, Tax Freedom Day would roll in on May 14. If we attempted to pay down the $15 trillion national debt, Tax Freedom Day would be probably be celebrated somewhere between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
