Today was apparently the first day in 2008 to be working for yourself rather than the federal government according to the Tax Policy Blog:
Most people have heard of Tax Freedom Day by now. For the few who haven’t, Tax Freedom Day is the day on which Americans have earned enough money to pay all their federal, state and local taxes for the year. On Tax Freedom Day, we have earned enough to pay the government and we can finally start keeping our paychecks for ourselves and our families. It’s a great way to illustrate how much the nation as a whole pays in taxes. We also calculate a Tax Freedom Day for each state.
How did Tax Freedom Day come about? According to this Special Report:
Tax Freedom Day was conceived by Florida businessman Dallas Hostetler in 1948. He performed the calculation himself and promoted his copyrighted concept until his retirement in 1971. He deeded the intellectual property to the Tax Foundation, and since then the Tax Foundation has used historical data to calculate Tax Freedom Day back to the beginning of the 20th century, and in 1990 sufficient data became available to calculate a separate Tax Freedom Day for each state.
Listen to the Tax Freedom Day song here.
(Complements of the Tax Prof Blog and RothCPA.com.)