How much of a tax burden is too much?

How much of a burden are taxes?

Look at it this way. If you are like a lot of Utahns, you'll spend a little more time in church today than it takes the average American to work on a typical weekday to pay off local and federal taxes.

The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation — the folks who calculate how many days it takes each year for the average American to earn enough money to pay his or her entire tax obligation for the year (Tax Freedom Day, they call the final day) — has broken down the average taxpayer's budget on a minute-by-minute basis.

During an eight-hour work day, you spend about 1 hour, 26 minutes earning enough to pay your federal taxes. You spend another 48 minutes earning money for state and local taxes. Those two items combined take up more of your work day than any other single item. It will take as much time to earn your daily housing costs as it does to satisfy your federal tax bill, but everything else falls well below that. Health care takes 1 hour, 6 minutes, transportation takes 40 minutes (although recent gas price increases may have changed this) and recreation costs take 29 minutes, or about the time it takes most of you to go on a 15-minute break.

Your own mileage will vary, of course. But in the days following the annual April 15 income tax frenzy, it can't hurt to reflect on what it all means, and where we are heading, and it's always interesting to look at a situation from different angles.

The one angle that seems to gain the most attention during this election year has to do with whether Washington is getting enough. Few people seem to be focusing on whether the people get to keep enough. No wonder I get the feeling Americans are a bit confused about it all. Two news stories this week reinforced this perception.

One was a report of a poll that the Associated Press commissioned. It found that almost two-thirds of Americans would rather have the government balance the budget than cut taxes. Fully 53 percent said they would like the recent tax cuts rolled back for people who earn $200,000 or more per year.

My guess is that few of those people actually earn $200,000 or more per year. I'm also skeptical as to whether the two-thirds who prefer a balanced budget to a tax cut understand what that would mean to their own pocketbooks.