April 15th is the day few of us look forward to: Tax Day.

Fortunately, there is a day we can reluctantly look forward to: Tax Freedom Day.

Tax Freedom Day is the day when the nation has worked long enough to pay for all federal, state, and local taxes for the year, according to the Tax Foundation.

This year, Americans will spend 30.2 percent of their income on all taxes. This makes Tax Freedom Day April 21st. To put it bluntly, we work for Uncle Sam for the first 111 days of the year-three days later than last year from a slower growing economy.

Texas’ more friendly tax code keeps us working only until April 13th to pay off all taxes. We lost three work days compared with last year, but Texas dropped to the 32nd shortest period of work days to pay federal, state, and local taxes (see figure below). 

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Interestingly, the report notes the following: “The latest ever Tax Freedom Day was May 1, 2000, meaning Americans paid 33.0 percent of their total income in taxes. A century earlier, in 1900, Americans paid only 5.9 percent of their income in taxes, meaning Tax Freedom Day came on January 22.”

The more time we work for the taxman (like the Beatles song), the less time we have to do more productive activities. Fiscal reforms that lower the state’s sales tax rate, such as the STaR Fund, and reform the complex, bloated federal tax code will go a long way to freeing us from paying too much taxes and have an earlier Tax Freedom Day.