In William Shakespeare's epic tragedy, "Julius Caesar," the Roman emperor is advised to "beware the Ides of March," presaging his eventual demise. Were the Bard of Avon alive today, he maight warn U.S. citizens to beware the ides of April, for it is on the 15th day of the fourth month of each year that U.S. taxpayers - individuals and businesses alike - are supposed to settle up with the federal government on their tax obligation for the prior year. Keeping in the spirit of tyranny and organized, legal theft, many U.S. states and a good number of larger municipalities also require filing and remittances on the same day.
While this obligation has only been in effect for the past 113 years, the Revenue Act of 1913, also known as the Underwood Tariff Act, created the first permanent federal income tax in United States history, made possible by the ratification of the sixteenth amendment.
The original law has been expanded, modified, enlarged, coded, exploited, used, and abused ad infinitum over the years by various crooks and scoundrels otherwise known as Senators, Representatives, and Presidents, to a point at which the federal tax code has grown to an unmanageable 6,871 pages, enough to cover the Bible, War and Peace, The Wealth of Nations, more than half of the Harvard Classics and still have room left over for a trashy romance novel or two. If one were to read the tax code at the rate of a page a minute (hardly enough to comprehend very much of it), it would take nearly five days of continuous reading to cover it all.
Most Americans don't find the tax burden in America particularly onerous, though the number of people not fully satisfied with both the level of levies and the wastrel ways of the U.S. government grows every year, especially leaping forward in the days approaching the dreaded deadline of April 15.
Here are just a few reasons that may dissuade people from paying their "fair share":
- In 2024, the average taxpayer paid almost $12,600 in federal and state income and payroll taxes.
- Taxpayers ages 46 to 55 typically owe the highest amount to the IRS, about $18,672.
- The average taxpayer also paid about $3,412 in FICA (payroll) taxes and about $1,920 in state income taxes.
- Roughly 40% of households pay no federal income tax, i.e., zero.
- Among those who paid taxes last year, the average federal bill for 2024 was more than $24,000 for federal and state income taxes and FICA, Investopedia's analysis shows.
Even though the federal government presses individuals and businesses for tax payments, in 2024, about 27% of federal spending was done with borrowed funds, which is actually somewhat on the low side. In 2020, at the depth of the pandemic recession, 48% of all federal spending was borrowed. In 2009 at the depth of the Great Recession, 40% of all federal spending in that year was borrowed.
The federal government has not had a balanced budget - meaning they took in enough from taxes to not have to borrow money - since 2000. The government has been running deficits for 25 consecutive years - a quarter century - and the amount borrowed has been growing steadily this century. Since 1960, the federal government has produced a surplus fewer than five times, and none in the past 25 years.
The total federal debt has grown to over $39 trillion and by this time in 2027, is likely to be more than $43 trillion.
The current debt per citizen is over $113,000. Per taxpayer, it's a whopping $357,000... and growing.
The bulk of government spending is in four distinct tranches:
- Medicare/Medicaid: $1.95 trillion
- Social Security: $1.62 trillion
- Interest on the debt: $1.12 trillion
- Military: $935 billion
Meanwhile, one in eight U.S. citizens receives food stamps or SNAP, about 41 million people in 22 million households. Others receive rent stipends, disability or retirement benefits (SS).
The United States seems to have somewhat perfected the welfare/warfare democracy. Americans are increasingly dependent on the government for sustenance while at the same time the U.S. military wages war around the world. U.S. infrastructure is in serious need of repair or upgrading. The government spends very little on improving and making the country better.
It may, as some suggest, be getting close to the time to replenish the tree of liberty because the current systemic looting and enslavement of the American people seems to be heading in the wrong direction.
Alternatives are few and far between. Suck it up. Pay up, Throw up.
Tax Day quizzes from IdleGuy.com:
Tax Day Part 3
Tax Day Part 2
Tax Day Part 1
At the Close, Tuesday, April 14, 2026:
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