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Tax Freedom Day arrived this year on April 13, according to the Tax Foundation. Each year, the Tax Foundation calculates the price the citizens of the United States are paying for government. For 2009, the answer is that taxes of various types account for 28.2% of the nation's total income. That means that for this year, the nation's total income from January 1 until April 13 goes to pay taxes.

However, the news gets worse. Including the 2009 budget deficit of $1.5 trillion, which is written $1,500,000,000,000.00, that date moves forward to May 29.

The majority of the individual tax burden falls into five categories:

1. Individual income taxes, both federal and state (requiring 38 days of work this year);
2. Payroll taxes (27 days of work);
3. Sales and excise taxes, mostly state and local (15 days of work);
4. Property taxes (12 days of work); and
5. Miscellaneous taxes, such as motor vehicle license taxes (4 days of work).

Read the full Tax Freedom Day report here.

The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan education organization, which was founded in 1937. The mission of the Tax Foundation is to educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden borne by all United States citizens.

Tax Freedom Day is a registered trademark of the Tax Foundation.

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