Happy Tax Freedom Day!!

2015 Tax Freedom Day

The underlying data that makes the US Tax Freedom Clock possible comes from annual calculations by the non-partisan Tax Foundation, who are the official keepers of the US Tax Freedom Day.

The Tax Foundation uses the most unbiased method possible for calculating the national Tax Freedom Day. As you can see below, it is very straight forward:

Dividing the total of federal, state and local taxes, by the total income of all Americans, gives us the percentage of our annual income that goes to taxes and likewise the percentage of the year that we have to work for the government to pay those taxes. Take that percentage and multiply it by the number of days in the year and you know how many days you have to work to pay your taxes for that year.

In the past, some people have suggested that Tax Freedom Day is not really representative of most working Americans, since it is skewed by the the large amount of taxes paid by the very rich. They try to spin the story that that the average taxpayer doesn’t really work that long, by ignoring other even more significant facts. But that’s all their argument is – spin. It has no basis in fact.

You see, like most spin, their argument focuses on just one point that is part of a much larger picture and, by itself, would tend to support their position. But in order to make their spin work, they completely ignore the fact that, according to the bi-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, roughly half of Americans don’t earn enough to have any tax liability. It should be noted that those who pay zero federal income tax also pay very little of any other taxes. They want us to forget that important fact, because they know that it more than offsets the effect of a handful of the rich paying huge amounts of tax. In the end, Tax Freedom Day is very representative of the average working American and may actually be skewed ever so slightly toward lower-income taxpayers. Because of this, there is a very good likelihood that your personal tax freedom day could be later than the one calculated by the Tax Foundation.