Tax Freedom Day

Not to be confused with Tax Day.

Tax Freedom Day is the first day of the year on which a nation as a whole has theoretically earned enough income to pay its taxes. Every dollar that is officially considered income by the government is counted, and every payment to the government that is officially considered a tax is counted. Taxes at all levels of government – local, state and federal – are included.

Purpose

According to Neil Veldhuis, Director of Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute, the purpose of Tax Freedom Day is to provide citizens of tax-paying countries with a metric with which to estimate their "total tax bill". The premise is that by comparing the benefits received by citizens to the amount they pay in taxes, the value of paying taxes can be assessed.

History and methodology

The concept of Tax Freedom Day was developed in 1948 by Florida businessman Dallas Hostetler, who trademarked the phrase "Tax Freedom Day" and calculated it each year for the next two decades. In 1971, Hostetler retired and transferred the trademark to the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation has calculated Tax Freedom Day for the United States ever since, using it as a tool for illustrating the proportion of national income diverted to fund the annual cost of government programs. In 1990, the Tax Foundation began calculating the specific Tax Freedom Day for each individual state.

Tax Freedom Day only examines taxation and does not account for debt and inflation as a means for funding government.

1. Debt comes with a guarantee of future repayment. Governments run at a deficit by promising creditors to service and repay debts by taxing future labor or generating revenue through other means such as sale or exploitation of state-owned assets.
2. Inflation or currency debasement increases the supply of currency. This new currency could be used to pay for government, but the increased supply results in a decrease in value of each unit of currency. As the value of currency decreases, commodity prices increase as a result.

Leap years have one day more, 29 February. This creates some bias in Tax Freedom Day charts. However, this bias is equal to roughly 1/366, which is about 0.27%.

United States

Tax Freedom Days in the U.S. since 1900:

Year	Tax Freedom Day	Tax Burden
1900	January 22	5.9%
1910	January 19	5.0%
1920	February 13	12.0%
1930	February 12	11.7%
1940	March 07	17.9%
1950	March 31	24.6%
1960	April 11	27.7%
1970	April 19	29.6%
1980	April 21	30.4%
1990	April 21	30.4%
2000	May 01	33.0%
2010	April 09	26.9%
2011	April 12	27.7%
2012	April 13	29.2%
2013	April 18	29.4%
2014	April 21	30.2%
2015	April 24	31.2%
2016	April 22	30.9%
2017	April 23	30.9%
2018	April 19	29.7%
2019	April 16	29.0%

See also: Taxation in the United States

In the United States, it is annually calculated by the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based tax research organization. In the U.S., Tax Freedom Day in 2019 is April 16, for a total average effective tax rate of 29% of the nation's income. The latest that Tax Freedom Day has occurred was May 1 in 2000. In 1900, Tax Freedom Day arrived January 22, for an effective average total tax rate of 5.9 percent of the nation's income. According to the Tax Foundation, the most important factor driving changes in Tax Freedom Day from year to year is growth in incomes, as the progressive structure of the U.S. federal tax system causes taxes as a percentage of income to rise along with inflation.

The Tax Foundation also calculates Tax Freedom day inclusive of annual federal borrowing, which came 22 days later in 2019, on May 8. The 22 days represent the federal deficit.

Tax Freedom Day varies among the 50 U.S. states, as incomes and state and local taxes differ from state to state. In 2019, Alaska had the lowest total tax burden, earning enough to pay all their tax obligations by March 25. Washington, D.C. had the heaviest tax burden – Tax Freedom Day there arrived May 3.

Around the world

Many other organizations in countries throughout the world now produce their own "Tax Freedom Day" analysis. According to the Tax Foundation, Tax Freedom Day reports are currently being published in eight countries. Due to the different ways that nations collect and categorize public finance data, however, Tax Freedom Days are not comparable from one country to another.

Tax Freedom Days for countries by date

Country	Day of year	% burden	Date of year	Updated	Source	Reference
Switzerland	121	33%	1 May	2015	Deloitte	[3]
India	74	20%	14 March	2000	Centre for Civil Society	[4]
Australia	107	29%	17 April	2019	Centre for Independent Studies	[5]
United States	114	31%	24 April	2015	Tax Foundation	[6]
Estonia	114	31%	24 April	2007	Eesti Maksumaksjate Liit (Estonian Taxpayers Association)	[7]
Lithuania	128	35%	15 May	2015	Lithuanian Free Market Institute	[8]
Spain	181	50%	30 June	2016	Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty and Spanish Taxpayers' Union
Uruguay	133	39%	13 May	2010	CPA Ferrere	[9]
Hungary	140	38%*	20 May	2008	Hungarian Central Statistic Institute	[10]
New Zealand	127	35%*	7 May	2018	Staples Rodway	[11][12]
South Africa	141	39%	22 May	2014	Free Market Foundation	[13]
Bulgaria	124	36%	4 May	2018	Radio Bulgaria	[14]
United Kingdom	162	44%	12 June	2017	Adam Smith Institute
Brazil	153	41%	31 May	2014	Instituto Brasileiro de Planejamento Tributario	[15]
Slovakia	155	42%	5 June	2017	Nadácia F.A.Hayeka	[16]
Canada	164	45%	14 June	2019	Fraser Institute	[17]
Belarus	135	37%	15 May	2016	The Public Association «Discussion and Analytical Society Liberal Club»	[18]
Croatia	161	44%	10 June	2010	Adriatic Institute for Public Policy	[19]
Czech Republic	149	41%	29 May	2017	Liberální institut	[20]
Slovenia	164	37%	13 June	2015	Svetilnik	[21]
Belgium	218	54%	17 July	2018	Institut économique Molinari (IEM)	[22]
Greece	169	46%	19 June	2012	Φορολογικό Παρατηρητήριο, Κέντρο Φιλελεύθερων Μελετών – Μάρκος Δραγούμης	[23]
Poland	156	43%	6 June	2018	Centrum im. Adama Smitha	[24]
Germany	192	52%	11 July	2015	Bund der Steuerzahler	[25]
Israel	197	54%	14 July	2013	Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies	[26]
Turkey	194	53%	14 July	2012	Liberal Democratic Party	[27]
Norway	210	57%	29 July	2007	Skattebetalerforeningen	[28]
France	208	57%	27 July	2018	Institut économique Molinari (IEM)	[29]
Bosnia and Herzegovina	161	44%	10 June	2017	Centre for Policy and Governance «Centar za politike i upravljanje»	[30]
Austria	216	-	5 August	2019	Austrian Economics Center	[31]

European Union

A 2010 study published in L'Anglophone, a Brussels newspaper, compared the tax burdens of "Average Joes" in each of the 27 EU member states and projected the Tax Freedom Day for workers earning a typical wage. Income taxes, social security contributions (by the employee and the employer) and projected VAT contributions were included in the calculations.

Regarding the discrepancy between their calculation of August 3 as the typical Belgian worker's Tax Freedom Day and that of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), L'Anglophone's authors wrote: "[PWC's] figures count revenue from all taxes (including those on corporate profits, petrol, cigarettes, &c.) and thus present a more complete picture of the country’s total tax burden," adding that it is "an average applied to all Belgians – not all Belgian workers; in 2008, less than half of Belgium’s population (4.99 million working out of 10.67 million citizens) was legally working. Consequently, a huge share of Belgium’s tax burden is borne by the working population."

2010 Tax Freedom Days for the "Average Joe" in the European Union, as published in L'Anglophone

Country	Day of year	% burden	Date of year
Austria	191	52%	10 July
Belgium	215	59%	3 August
Bulgaria	145	40%	25 May
Cyprus	72	19%	13 March
Czech Rep.	165	45%	14 June
Denmark	168	46%	17 June
Estonia	150	41%	30 May
Finland	166	45%	15 June
France	207	56%	26 July
Germany	200	55%	19 July
Greece	164	45%	13 June
Hungary	218	59%	6 August
Ireland	117	32%	27 April
Italy	169	46%	18 June
Latvia	161	44%	10 June
Lithuania	167	45%	20 May
Luxembourg	135	37%	15 May
Malta	99	27%	9 April
Netherlands	184	50%	3 July
Poland	160	44%	9 June
Portugal	150	41%	30 May
Romania	178	49%	27 June
Slovakia	167	46%	16 June
Slovenia	164	45%	13 June
Spain	136	37%	16 May
Sweden	181	49%	30 June
United Kingdom	134	36%	13 May

Criticism

In the book Filthy Lucre: Economics for People Who Hate Capitalism, philosopher Joseph Heath criticizes the idea that tax-paying is inherently different from consumption:

It would make just as much sense to declare an annual "mortgage freedom day", in order to let mortgage owners know what day they "stop working for the bank and start working for themselves". ...But who cares? Homeowners are not really "working for the bank"; they're merely financing their own consumption. After all, they're the ones living in the house, not the bank manager.

Mathematical

For Canada, the Fraser Institute also includes a "Personal Tax Freedom Day Calculator" that estimates a customized Tax Freedom Day based on additional variables such as age of household head, sex of household head, marital status and number of children. However, the Fraser Institute's figures have been disputed. For example, a 2005 study by Osgoode Hall Law Professor Neil Brooks argued the Fraser Institute's Tax Freedom Day analysis includes flawed accounting, including the exclusion of several important forms of income and overstating tax figures, moving the date nearly two months later.

In America, while Tax Freedom Day presents an "average American" tax burden, it is not a tax burden typical for an American. That is, the tax burdens of most Americans are substantially overstated by Tax Freedom Day. The larger tax bills associated with higher incomes increases the average tax burden above that of most Americans.

The Tax Foundation defends its methodology by pointing out that Tax Freedom Day is the U.S. economy's overall average tax burden—not the tax burden of the "average" American, which is how it is often misinterpreted by members of the media. Tax Foundation materials do not use the phrase "tax burden of the average American", although members of the media often make this mistake.

Another criticism is that the calculation includes capital gains taxes but not capital gains income, thus overstating the tax burden. For example, in the late 1990s the US Tax Freedom Day moved later, reaching its latest date ever in 2000, but this was largely due to capital gains taxes on the bull market of that era rather than an increase in tax rates. In other words, variations in capital gains income and their associated taxes cause changes in the amount of taxes, but not in the income used in the calculation of Tax Freedom Day.

The Tax Foundation argues that the Tax Freedom Day calculation does not include capital gains as income because it uses income and tax data directly from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). BEA has never counted capital gains as income since they don't represent current production available to pay taxes, and so the Tax Foundation excludes them as well. Additionally, the Tax Foundation argues that the exclusion of capital gains income is irrelevant in most years since including capital gains would only shift Tax Freedom Day by 1 percent in either direction in most years. A 1 percent change would represent 3.65 days. From 1968 to 2009 the date has never left the 21-day range of April 13 to May 3.

See also

• List of countries by tax rates
• List of countries by tax revenue as percentage of GDP
• Rahn curve
• Government spending
• Laffer curve

External links

• Tax Foundation's Tax Freedom Day
• Tax Freedom Day Clock A live clock that counts the days till/since Tax Freedom Day
• Tax Freedom Day Clock (UK) A live clock that counts the days till/since UK Tax Freedom Day
• Criticism: Tax Foundation Figures Do Not Represent Typical Households’ Tax Burdens
  • Response to Criticism: Tax Freedom Day: A Description of Its Calculation and Answers to Some Methodological Questions