The deadline has arrived. Procrastinators among us have enjoyed two extra days of twiddling their thumbs, but today is the absolute, final, unavoidable deadline for filing your 2017 taxes. Well, unless you seek an extension.
April 15 is the traditional tax day in the United States, but this year offered a short reprieve. With the 15th falling on a Sunday and the 16th being recognized as Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C., the deadline was pushed back. That provided us with a little time, but as the deadline looms at midnight tonight, it is cathartic to examine the role of taxes and the teeth-gnashing that comes with paying them.
Let’s face it, few people enjoy paying taxes. We work hard for our money, and it can be frustrating to think that much of it lands in our pockets for only a short time. The Tax Foundation has deemed April 19 as Tax Freedom Day this year, meaning that from Jan. 1 until this week, the money we earn goes to the government.
Is that overburdensome? It depends upon your perspective. Most Americans agree that it is in our collective interests to help pay for infrastructure, health care, economic development, social services, and myriad other benefits. But the question of how much is too much is a matter of individual taste.
Among federal spending, roughly half the budget goes to “mandatory” spending such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Among “discretionary” items, military spending is by far the largest chunk — roughly 15 percent of the total budget.
As part of a $1.3 trillion spending bill approved by Congress and President Trump last month, military spending will increase by nearly $100 billion a year. This followed a tax bill passed last year that is expected to sharply decrease revenue and increase the deficit by about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. That might have been an overly optimistic estimate, with an analysis released last week by the Congressional Budget Office projecting the deficit to exceed $1 trillion in 2019 alone.
The tax reform bill passed in late 2017 will provide some tax relief for all Americans. But, as Vox.com wrote in December: “It’s a bill that by almost every official analysis overwhelmingly benefits America’s highest earners, and doesn’t do much to simplify the tax code.” So, while you look forward to some small savings on next year’s taxes, remember that the Joint Committee on Taxation says those who earn more than $100,000 will reap 75 percent of the tax cuts. Oh, and individual tax cuts are set to expire while corporate tax cuts are “permanent.”
Also worth noting is that the public has no idea how President Trump will benefit from the new law. Breaking with tradition, candidate Trump declined to release his tax returns while disingenuously claiming that an IRS audit prevented such disclosure. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president would “likely take a big hit” from the new tax law, but it would enhance his credibility if he would provide some transparency.
Of course, today is not the be-all and end-all of taxation. We pay sales tax nearly every day, and gas tax whenever we fill up at the pump. Then there are payroll taxes that come out of each paycheck. Adding all that together, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found in a study last year that the overall tax burden among Americans ranked 25th out of 35 developed countries.
For some of us, that still is too high; for others it’s not high enough. But regardless of your thinking, it is time to pay up.
