Tax Freedom Day

[Eagle43]

Well, On Wednesday, most of us will no longer be working for the government; it will only be for ourselves.  Nice, huh? Oh, but the Brits don't get released until 26 June and the Canadians manage it on 25 June.

Here's a REPORT FROM THE TAX FOUNDATION.

Just what is tax freedom day? From the report: Tax Freedom Day is calculated by dividing the official government tally of all taxes collected in each year by the official government tally of all income earned in each year. Governments — federal, state and local — took 30.3% of income in 1980; 30.5% in 1990; 33.6% in 2000; and so on. This percentage is what is properly called the "nation’s total tax burden." We then use the historical trend and the most recent economic data to make a projection of what the tax burden will be in the current year.
-------------
Note that in 1900, we were free on 11 January. Do we get that much more government services now, than then?

 

[farmerEd]

Not me  with a family of six, no earned income, carry forward capital losses, large amounts of depreciation/losses for my farm equipment/farm operation and the use of tax sheltered savings accounts...not to mention the refundable EITC/child credit, my tax rate this year was negative...so in 2005, I stopped working for the govt around Oct 2004  .

One of my very favorite things about being ER'ed.

 

[astromeria]

]Do we get that much more government services now, than then? 

Yes.

 

[laurence]

Redistribution of wealth. Western civilization has bought into "Marx light" so the government gobbles up more income to redistribute in the way of welfare, Medicare, Social Security, Food Stamps, etc. All of those redistribution plans make up about half of our tax burden. The other half? Defense, payments on the debt, all those employees of the government, a heavy salting of pork projects etc.

Not making a judgement call, just saying we went from a more libertarian society to a more socialist one over the last century.