ILLINOIS NEWS NET
WORK
The nation celebrated Tax Freedom Day Sunday.
That’s the day when the entire country’s taxpayers have earned enough to pay off their collective burden to local, state and federal government. The numbers are crunched by the Tax Foundation, which does the annual exercise to show just how much of the nation’s collective paychecks go to taxes.
“The burden of taxation from federal, state and local governments is incredibly high,” analyst Nicole Kaeding said. “Almost 31 percent of national income goes to paying those taxes.”
But Tax Freedom Day doesn’t take into account that the federal government spends more than it brings in. If that extra debt is considered, the day Americans work long enough to pay the tab to the government gets pushed back.
“We have to understand deficits as being future taxes. That overspending becomes part of our national debt, which we will have to pay off at some point in the future,” Kaeding said. “If we include the impact of the deficit, Tax Freedom Day moves even later in the year up until about the beginning of May.”
Illinois’ state and local governments take more than the national average. So much so that Illinoisans owe another seven days before the state’s workers could keep what they earn. Illinoisans Tax Freedom day is April 30, not April 23.
The latest ever Tax Freedom Day was in 2000, when Americans paid 33 percent of their total income in taxes. Tax Freedom Day was May 1.
At $5.1 trillion, Americans will send more money to the government than they will spend on food, clothing and housing combined.
