April 15 is Tax Freedom Day in Illinois

by Amanda Griffin-Johnson Today, the Tax Foundation released their annual report on the Tax Freedom Day for each of the fifty states. The Tax Freedom Day measures the number of days Americans have to work to pay for all their annual taxes at the federal, state and local level. The national Tax Freedom Day for 2011 is...

by Amanda Griffin-Johnson

Today, the Tax Foundation released their annual report on the Tax Freedom Day for each of the fifty states. The Tax Freedom Day measures the number of days Americans have to work to pay for all their annual taxes at the federal, state and local level. The national Tax Freedom Day for 2011 is April 12, but Illinois residents will have to work until April 15 for their Tax Freedom Day. Mississippi has the earliest Tax Freedom Day at March 26th, and Connecticut has the latest Tax Freedom Day at May 2. Click on the map below to see it larger.

With Illinois residents having to work 105 days to pay their taxes, the state had the 9th latest Tax Freedom Day in the country. It is also four days longer than Illinoisans had to work last year to reach the state’s April 11 Tax Freedom Day.

While the Tax Foundation uses taxes that will actually be collected during 2011 to calculate the Tax Freedom Day, the growing deficits cause the Tax Freedom Day to underestimate the actual cost and size of government today. To account for the large deficits, the Tax Foundation has also come up with the Federal Budget Deficit Day, which measures the amount that the government would have to collect from taxpayers to finance all of it’s expenditures for the year. The Federal Budget Deficit Day for 2011 would arrive on May 23– 41 days after the national Tax Freedom Day!

To read the full report from the Tax Foundation, click here.