You'll work 4 months just to pay taxes

Critics, however, contend that even the words tax "freedom" and "burden" are heavily freighted. "It's quite misleading," warns Karen Kraut of United for a Fair Economy, a nonprofit social-justice group. "By using the word 'freedom,' Tax Freedom Day is carefully constructed to associate taxes with freedom's opposite -- slavery, incarceration, oppression -- and promotes the idea that taxes are vile."

Other critics take issue with the way the foundation calculates the date. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a D.C. think tank representing the interests of low-income families in debates on budget and tax policies, says middle-income Americans "pay significantly less in taxes as a share of their income than the Tax Foundation implies."

The problem has to do with how "average" is defined. The foundation uses the mathematical average: total wages divided by total taxes. But the think tank argues that because the tax system is progressive, people with higher incomes pay a greater percentage of their incomes in taxes. Though the media often refers to Tax Freedom Day as the date when the average American has "finished" working for the government, the think tank says families in the middle of the income spectrum work 40% fewer days than the Tax Freedom Day "average."

Yet some observers believe that because of hidden fees and accounting artifices, Americans pay even higher taxes than the Tax Foundation asserts. (See "Your real tax rate: 40%.")

How about 'Tax Pride Day'?

Many Republicans and Libertarians say taxes are detrimental to the economic health of the country. This belief was distilled in 2003 in a Tax Freedom Day opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times. David and George Marotta, both financial planners, wrote: "Many economists believe we already are well beyond the level at which high taxes drive down productivity for the most productive Americans; hence tax cuts for above-average earners, who pay most taxes, will result in increased economic growth and more taxes being collected."

The Marottas invoked an analogy attributed to a finance minister in the court of France's Louis XIV who compared the art of taxation to plucking a goose: to obtain the most feathers with the least amount of hissing.

Kraut, of United for a Fair Economy, would use a different metaphor. She thinks of taxation as "a potluck dinner where everybody contributes a part of the meal, and together a great feast is created for all to share." She believes Tax Freedom Day should be renamed "Tax Pride Day," a celebration of the "great country we've built together, paid for with our taxes."

Through the decades*

Year	Tax Freedom Day	Taxes as % of income
1900	Jan. 22	5.9%
1910	Jan. 19	5.0%
1920	Feb. 13	12.0%
1930	Feb. 12	11.6%
1940	March 7	18.0%
1950	April 1	24.9%
1960	April 12	27.9%
1970	April 20	29.9%
1980	April 22	30.7%
1990	April 23	30.8%
2000	May 5	34.0%
2001	May 1	33.0%
2002	April 21	30.3%
2003	April 18	29.5%
2004	April 19	29.7%
2005	April 26	31.5%
2006	April 28	32.3%
2007	April 30	32.7%
2008	April 23	30.8%

*Dates and tax loads recalculated since 2006
Note: Leap days omitted
Source: Tax Foundation calculations based on data from Office of Management and Budget, Internal Revenue Service, Congressional Research Service and National Bureau of Economic Research

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