Tax Freedom Day Clock Widget, v2.0 (2008)
Each year, the Tax Foundation publishes a report, in which they have calculated the date on which the average US taxpayer has earned enough to pay all of his taxes for that year. For obvious reasons, this date is referred to as Tax Freedom Day.
To help draw attention to how much of our labors go into paying taxes, we at ActionAmerica.org decided to use that date, to create the web-basedTax Freedom Day Clock and this Tax Freedom Day Clock Widget. Both count down the months, days, hours, minutes and seconds till the next Tax Freedom Day or if Tax Freedom Day has passed, the months, days, hours, minutes and seconds that you have actually been earning your own money, since the occurrence of Tax Freedom Day.
This is a live clock. That means that the Tax Freedom Day Clock will update not only when the Dashboard is opened, but will continue to update, as long as the Dashboard is left open (to save CPU cycles, it is inactive when Dashboard is closed). We wanted you to be able to actually watch the Tax Freedom Day Clock count down, which is why we have gone all the way to seconds.
We find that actually watching the clock, ever so slowly count down to Tax Freedom, seems to emphasize the seriousness of the problem with our out-of-control taxes. In fact, we have been told that watching the time to Tax Freedom tick by so slowly, either frustrates or even angers many people, as it makes folks realize just how much of their hard work goes to line someone elses pocket. Some have even suggested that doing it that way borders on being sadistic. Our response is that it is much less sadistic than our own government demanding that we work more than a quarter of every year for them.
This widget will automatically update itself, from the internet, to use the latest Tax Freedom Day data each year, when the new data becomes available. It checks for the updated data each time the widget is opened or displayed. It also resets itself the first time that is viewed, after each new year.
Even though you don't need to update this widget each year, it should be noted that this text will likely change slightly, from year to year, so you might want to update your Tax Freedom Day Clock Widget on an annual basis, just to get the updated explanation.
Also, the data used by the Tax Foundation, to calculate the next Tax Freedom Day does not become available from the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) until late March or early April. So each year, until the Tax Foundation receives that data and announces Tax Freedom Day for that year and we update the data file that is used by this widget, our Tax Freedom Day Clock will count down to the previous year's Tax Freedom Day.
If Tax Freedom Day actually changes from the previous year, you may notice a few days change in the Tax Freedom Day Clock, around the first of April, when the data on the internet is updated.
However, any such change in the date will probably be nominal, as only three times since 1970 has the year to year change been more than four days and 25 times the year to year change was two days or less (see chart for 1982 to present or download the spreadsheet for 1970 to present, from the Tax Foundation).
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 similarly 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. Our Tax Freedom Day Clock converts that number of days to a date and time and counts down to that time.
In actuality, Tax Freedom Day is different for each state, depending upon the various tax rates that may be in effect in each state, for that tax year. In that case, the formula changes slightly, using only federal, state and local taxes for each state and only the total income for each state.
Individual state Tax Freedom Days for 2008 ranged from March 29 (in low-tax Alaska) to May 8 (in high-tax Connecticut). To learn when Tax Freedom Day falls in your state, visit the Tax Foundation web site.
For our Tax Freedom Day Clock, we use the National Tax Freedom Day, which fell on April 23, in 2008. As mentioned above, the Tax Freedom Day Clock will automatically update itself as soon as the data for 2009 becomes available and is posted on the internet.
The important thing to remember is that even in the states with the earliest Tax Freedom Day, at least a quarter of your days at work each year, go to pay your taxes (except Alaska, which comes in just under a quarter, at 24.3%). In the worst states, that number rises to more than a third of your work year. Converting that to hours, in an eight hour work day, we all work at least the first two hours just to pay the government. The people in Connecticut work the first two hours and 49 minutes to pay the government.
That's like working two or three hours of every day, for which you will NOT get paid.
So the question that you must ask yourself is, "Are the services that I receive from the government worth a quarter to a third of my work days, each year?"
Or, to put it another way, "Are the services that I receive from the government worth a quarter to a third of my working life?"
How many of those lost days at work went to build a "bridge to nowhere" or to provide other pork? How many of those lost days do you think were spent to line the pockets of a bureaucrat or government contractor? Would you have spent any of your hard-earned money on any of those pork projects? Couldn't you provide or purchase many of those government services for yourself, for much less money and have more left over to improve your lifestyle? Are you getting a fair return in services, from the government, for all that work that you do for them? Think about it...
Tax Freedom Day is exactly what the name implies. It's the day on which the money that you earn actually begins to benefit you and not the government.
We want to thank our friends at the Tax Foundation for their annual efforts to bring us this information. If you have not visited their site, we encourage you to do so. You may be surprised at what you will learn.
Note: We have ocasionally had people contact us, early in the year, telling us that our Tax Freedom Day Clock is off by one hour. The clock has, in each case, been accurate. We want to remind our readers, who might want to check our calculations, not to forget that there is a one hour time change, between January 1 and Tax Freedom Day. Our clock counts down actual hours, rather than adjusted hours.
However, if you do think that you see an error in the clock, please don't hesitate to contact us. After all, this is the first version of this widget and we have completely restructured the code, from the web-based version. Although we have tested this widget thoroughly, being an essentially new product means that there could be a minor glitch that we missed, in testing.
For more information on how this high taxation is affecting you and our economy and what can be done to improve matters, read our article The Economy Bomb - Ticking Down Faster. While you are there, check out our other widgets, too.
Each year, the Tax Foundation publishes a report, in which they have calculated the date on which the average US taxpayer has earned enough to pay all of his taxes for that year. For obvious reasons, this date is referred to as Tax Freedom Day.
To help draw attention to how much of our labors go into paying taxes, we at ActionAmerica.org decided to use that date, to create the web-basedTax Freedom Day Clock and this Tax Freedom Day Clock Widget. Both count down the months, days, hours, minutes and seconds till the next Tax Freedom Day or if Tax Freedom Day has passed, the months, days, hours, minutes and seconds that you have actually been earning your own money, since the occurrence of Tax Freedom Day.
This is a live clock. That means that the Tax Freedom Day Clock will update not only when the Dashboard is opened, but will continue to update, as long as the Dashboard is left open (to save CPU cycles, it is inactive when Dashboard is closed). We wanted you to be able to actually watch the Tax Freedom Day Clock count down, which is why we have gone all the way to seconds.
We find that actually watching the clock, ever so slowly count down to Tax Freedom, seems to emphasize the seriousness of the problem with our out-of-control taxes. In fact, we have been told that watching the time to Tax Freedom tick by so slowly, either frustrates or even angers many people, as it makes folks realize just how much of their hard work goes to line someone elses pocket. Some have even suggested that doing it that way borders on being sadistic. Our response is that it is much less sadistic than our own government demanding that we work more than a quarter of every year for them.
This widget will automatically update itself, from the internet, to use the latest Tax Freedom Day data each year, when the new data becomes available. It checks for the updated data each time the widget is opened or displayed. It also resets itself the first time that is viewed, after each new year.
Even though you don't need to update this widget each year, it should be noted that this text will likely change slightly, from year to year, so you might want to update your Tax Freedom Day Clock Widget on an annual basis, just to get the updated explanation.
Also, the data used by the Tax Foundation, to calculate the next Tax Freedom Day does not become available from the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) until late March or early April. So each year, until the Tax Foundation receives that data and announces Tax Freedom Day for that year and we update the data file that is used by this widget, our Tax Freedom Day Clock will count down to the previous year's Tax Freedom Day.
If Tax Freedom Day actually changes from the previous year, you may notice a few days change in the Tax Freedom Day Clock, around the first of April, when the data on the internet is updated.
However, any such change in the date will probably be nominal, as only three times since 1970 has the year to year change been more than four days and 25 times the year to year change was two days or less (see chart for 1982 to present or download the spreadsheet for 1970 to present, from the Tax Foundation).
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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:
| Total taxes | x | 365 (or 366) days |
= | Days to TF Day |
|
|
||||
| Total income |
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 similarly 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. Our Tax Freedom Day Clock converts that number of days to a date and time and counts down to that time.
In actuality, Tax Freedom Day is different for each state, depending upon the various tax rates that may be in effect in each state, for that tax year. In that case, the formula changes slightly, using only federal, state and local taxes for each state and only the total income for each state.
Individual state Tax Freedom Days for 2008 ranged from March 29 (in low-tax Alaska) to May 8 (in high-tax Connecticut). To learn when Tax Freedom Day falls in your state, visit the Tax Foundation web site.
For our Tax Freedom Day Clock, we use the National Tax Freedom Day, which fell on April 23, in 2008. As mentioned above, the Tax Freedom Day Clock will automatically update itself as soon as the data for 2009 becomes available and is posted on the internet.
The important thing to remember is that even in the states with the earliest Tax Freedom Day, at least a quarter of your days at work each year, go to pay your taxes (except Alaska, which comes in just under a quarter, at 24.3%). In the worst states, that number rises to more than a third of your work year. Converting that to hours, in an eight hour work day, we all work at least the first two hours just to pay the government. The people in Connecticut work the first two hours and 49 minutes to pay the government.
That's like working two or three hours of every day, for which you will NOT get paid.
So the question that you must ask yourself is, "Are the services that I receive from the government worth a quarter to a third of my work days, each year?"
Or, to put it another way, "Are the services that I receive from the government worth a quarter to a third of my working life?"
How many of those lost days at work went to build a "bridge to nowhere" or to provide other pork? How many of those lost days do you think were spent to line the pockets of a bureaucrat or government contractor? Would you have spent any of your hard-earned money on any of those pork projects? Couldn't you provide or purchase many of those government services for yourself, for much less money and have more left over to improve your lifestyle? Are you getting a fair return in services, from the government, for all that work that you do for them? Think about it...
Tax Freedom Day is exactly what the name implies. It's the day on which the money that you earn actually begins to benefit you and not the government.
We want to thank our friends at the Tax Foundation for their annual efforts to bring us this information. If you have not visited their site, we encourage you to do so. You may be surprised at what you will learn.
Note: We have ocasionally had people contact us, early in the year, telling us that our Tax Freedom Day Clock is off by one hour. The clock has, in each case, been accurate. We want to remind our readers, who might want to check our calculations, not to forget that there is a one hour time change, between January 1 and Tax Freedom Day. Our clock counts down actual hours, rather than adjusted hours.
However, if you do think that you see an error in the clock, please don't hesitate to contact us. After all, this is the first version of this widget and we have completely restructured the code, from the web-based version. Although we have tested this widget thoroughly, being an essentially new product means that there could be a minor glitch that we missed, in testing.
For more information on how this high taxation is affecting you and our economy and what can be done to improve matters, read our article The Economy Bomb - Ticking Down Faster. While you are there, check out our other widgets, too.
