WASHINGTON -- Tax Freedom Day falls on April 11 this year, according to the Tax Foundation's annual calculation using the latest government data on income and taxes.April 11 is the earliest Tax Freedom Day in 37 years. It is three days earlier than 2003's Tax Freedom Day of April 14 and an amazing 21 days earlier than in 2000, when the boom and bubble pushed tax burdens to a record high, and Tax Freedom Day was postponed until May 2."Federal tax cuts have made the average American tax burden lighter in 2004," says Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. "Because the bubble in 1999 and 2000 boosted tax collections to artificially high levels, the drop since then is all the more dramatic. In fact, it's the biggest drop in America's tax burden in at least a century."What is Tax Freedom Day?Tax Freedom Day is the day when Americans will have earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year. For illustrative purposes, it is assumed people earn their money evenly through the year, and that everything they earn at the beginning of the year goes toward taxes. Every dollar that's officially called income by the government is counted, and every payment to the government that is officially considered a tax is counted. Taxes at all levels of government are included, whether levied by Uncle Sam or state and local governments.Tax Freedom Day gives Americans an easy way to gauge the overall tax take, a task that can be daunting due to the multiplicity of taxes at each level of government, especially the "hidden" taxes and fees that are often buried in the cost of living. Tax Freedom Day provides taxpayers with a tax barometer that measures the total tax burden over time and by state.Projected Course of Tax Freedom DayTax legislation being debated right now will affect the course of future Tax Freedom Days. President Bush wants to keep such popular tax cuts as the child tax credit, the 10% bracket, and the marriage penalty relief at their most generous levels, which they have reached in 2004, rather than let them dip from 2005 through 2009, and finally expire after 2010 as they are scheduled to do under current law. U.S. Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry also speaks out in favor of most of the tax cuts but campaigns for repealing the tax cuts for higher-income taxpayers.If current law prevails, the tax burden will start growing again, and Tax Freedom Day will fall later and later in April for the next ten years.Taxes and Other ExpensesThe report also compares the number of days Americans work to pay taxes to the number of days they work to support themselves. "Despite the dramatically lower tax burden in 2004, Americans will still spend more on taxes than they spend on food, clothing and medical care combined," Hodge says.In 2004, Americans will work 65 days to afford their federal taxes and 36 more days to afford state and local taxes. Other categories of spending measured in the report include housing and household operation (66 days), health and medical care (51 days), food (31 days), transportation (31 days), recreation (22 days), clothing and accessories (14 days), saving (five days) and all other (44 days).As most taxpayers are aware, income taxes are the type of tax that we work longest for -- 36 days, with 28 of those days worked for Uncle Sam and 8 more days to pay off state and local income taxes. Social insurance taxes which along with income taxes are deducted directly from most people's paychecks, require 28 days' worth of work to pay for. Sales and excise taxes require 16 days of work, property taxes 11 days and business taxes nine days.Tax Freedom Day by StateTax burdens vary considerably from state to state, not only because of different state and local taxes, but because of divergent federal tax payments. The five states with the heaviest tax burdens who therefore wait the longest for Tax Freedom Day are all in the northeast: Connecticut (April 28), New York (April 27), New Jersey (April 19), Massachusetts (April 18) and Rhode Island (April 16). Because the cost of living and salaries are higher in these states, taxpayers must work longer to pay their disproportionate share of progressive federal income taxes. The next five most-taxed states in 2004 are Maine (April 15), Washington (April 15), Wyoming (April 14), Nevada (April 13) and California (April 13).The five states with the lightest total tax burdens celebrate Tax Freedom Day the earliest. March 26 is the earliest of all. That's when Alaskans will celebrate. Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina have the second, third and fourth lightest total tax burdens, and they were done working for government on April 1. Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Dakota all finished on April 2. North Dakota and Iowa finished on April 3.This year, the nation's average state/local tax burden is 10% of residents' income, with the highest being New York's 12.9% and the lowest being Alaska's 6.3%.The report is Tax Foundation Special Report No. 129, "America Celebrates Tax Freedom Day," by Hodge and Foundation Senior Economist Scott Moody. The report traces the course of America's tax burden since 1900, examines the composition of today's tax burden by type of tax, projects the future course of Tax Freedom Day and compares tax payments to other typical consumer expenditures.The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has monitored fiscal policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937.Visit the Tax Foundation: www.TaxFoundation.org"