Taxpayers may have to finish filing their taxes by April15, but they'll have earned enough to pay their share by April 9, according tothe Tax Foundation.
The foundation, a tax- and fiscal policy-monitoringnonprofit, calculates the date of "Tax Freedom Day" by taking theofficial government figure of total tax collections and dividing it by thenation's total income; the resulting percentage is applied to the year todetermine how much time taxpayers spend working to pay this year's taxobligations at the federal, state and local levels.
This year's federal Tax Freedom Day of April 9 is one daylater than last year, but two weeks earlier than in 2007, as a result of therepeal of two taxes (including the estate tax) for 2010, and of the recessionreducing tax collection even faster than it has reduced income. Thecalculations do not include the federal deficit; if it did, Tax Freedom Daywould be pushed back to May 17.
The Tax Foundation noted that it expected that recentmassive deficits will cause future Tax Freedom Days to come later and later inthe year.
The foundation also calculates Tax Freedom Days forindividual states; Alaska and Louisiana have the earliest, at March 26, whileConnecticut has the latest, on April 27.
For more, visit http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday.
