Monday, April 02, 2007

So that's why I can't seem to get ahead

The TaxProfBlog has a post about the Tax Foundation's "Tax Freedom Day," when we can stop working for the government and start working for ourselves. My home state of Connecticut has the very last Tax Freedom Day, May 20, which is four days later than New York (May 16). The state formerly known as "Taxachussetts" is in ninth position, with a May 6 date for freedom.

For the nation as a whole, tax freedom is two days later this year than last, April 30. Only eight states have a tax freedom date earlier that this year's federal income tax filing deadline. Oklahoma's is earliest, April 12.

I sure wish I knew where all those Connecticut tax dollars are going.
Posted by Jim Gust at 11:51 AM

3 comments:

JLM said...

Don't feel too bad. Judging from the links provided by Tax Prof, the Tax Foundation's estimates for states are notoriously inaccurante.

Interesting that their list of low tax states omits Nevada and New Hampshire ("Tax Free or Die"), both of whom are averse to sales and income taxes.

3:32 PM
Jim Gust said...

He also provides a link for their rebuttal, which looks pretty sound to me. The folks who are attacking the Tax Foundation's accuracy are really using that as a proxy to attack the fundamental idea that we should care about how much we pay in taxes.

The critics argue that because the things the Tax Foundation says can't be known, they should not be said. It might be OK to identify what tax freedom day was several years ago, once we have the census accurate data, but it's somehow immoral to estimate what it is this year?

I'm not buying that.

4:02 PM
JLM said...

For sure, things that can't be known can be said. POTUS does it all the time. I believe he calls it "faith-based thinking."

5:54 PM

Post a Comment