Ponder our dreaded taxes

There may be no better day than this Thursday for Americans to understand the effect of taxes. Even if you received a refund, you filed a return that showed how much you paid. You can easily imagine what you might have done with that money, instead.

But while April 15 is tax day, today is the day Utahns really ought to be noting. Each year, the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit based in Washington, calculates how long it would take American workers to pay their annual obligations for all federal, state and local taxes if their income was devoted solely for that purpose beginning Jan. 1. For Utahns, this year that date is today, April 11.

That's two days later than the national average. And while it's a long way from Tax Freedom Day in 1900, which was Jan. 22, the day has more or less hovered around this time of year for several decades now. But add in how long it would take to cover the budget deficit, and suddenly you're looking at mid-May or later.

The chasm between what we pay and what the nation spends is growing wider every day. And because Americans will have to pay those debts one way or the other eventually, you now work nearly half the year to get from under government's burden. This becomes more and more important as the nation faces a future that seems to include nothing but more spending on credit.

The ultimate day of tax reckoning is coming. It will require drastic changes in how much Americans pay or what programs they fund or how the tax system is structured — or all three. Without hard choices, it will mean inflation, a weakened dollar and a loss of international prestige. Greece seems to be holding the flashlight as it blazes this trail.

One other news story this week, out of the Tax Policy Center in Washington, also is worth pondering. It found that 47 percent of all U.S. households will pay no federal tax at all for income earned in 2009. For some, their income was too low. For many others, they accumulated enough credits, exemptions or other deductions to cover everything they otherwise would owe. Some families of four that earned $50,000 last year are in this group.

The rich, meanwhile — those households earning an average of $366,400 or more — pay about 73 percent of all income taxes collected.

Politicians like to say the rich should pay more; that they aren't paying their fair share. The truth is the rich are just about tapped out for tax purposes.