In 2014 Americans Will Pay More For Taxes Than Food, Clothing And Shelter Combined

If you’re like me, you’ve procrastinated on your taxes and now you’ve got to rush and get them done by the deadline. I know I’m looking forward to a long, angry weekend of sorting receipts and filling out worksheets. So, to cheer us on our way, there’s this.

The Tax Foundation has their annual Tax Freedom Day study out. For those of you who don’t know what this is, the Foundation tallies up all the taxes Americans pay and then figures out the day on which the average American will be done paying off their tax burden.

This year the date is April 21st, which is three days later than last year. That means Americans, on average, will work three days longer to pay their taxes in 2014 than they did in 2013.

Here in North Dakota the day comes a little later. Citizens here won’t be done paying off their taxes until the 25th. That’s much later than South Dakota, which has the earliest Tax Freedom Day in the nation on April 4th, and Montana which hits their date on April 14th. Minnesota is a bit later, hitting their date on the 29th.

North Dakota is tied with the State of Washington for the 9th latest Tax Freedom Day in the nation.

To the right there’s a fully tally of how many days the average American spends paying each specific type of tax. Absolutely frightening is the fact that we spend nearly as many days paying taxes for social insurance (Social Security, Medicaire, etc.) as we do paying the general income tax. That’s bound to get worse as American demographics continue to shift and we get more retirees leaning on those programs, and fewer workers holding them up.

Also discouraging is this fun fact: In 2014 Americans will spend more on taxes than food, shelter and clothing combined: