AS TAXES GROW HEAVIER, TAX FREEDOM DAY COMES LATER

The nation's taxpayers, or at least those who put off the inevitable until the last minute, trudge into post offices nationwide Friday to do their duty, paying the admission for living in a "free" society. That April 15, when most Americans pay their income taxes, has become a dreaded day of reckoning is made more understandable by the increased burden taxpayers are asked to bear in this country. An unbefitting irony is the concentration of all this concern on a single day of remuneration, since talk of taxation is an exercise that knows no day off.

The Southeast Missourian has an electronic library system in which stories can be retrieved by submitting certain key words into a computer queue. For the 12 months of 1993, this newspaper archived 531 stories that contained the words "tax" and "increase." Inevitably, some of these stories dealt with legislative proposals that never came to be. Some were repetitive in content, with multiple stories detailing varied aspects of the same tax package. However, the fact remains that there were so many tax increase stories generated last year because there were so many tax increase proposals floated. (Researching the tax reduction stories would have been less time-consuming; those proposals were less plentiful.)

Consider the taxes talked about in 1993:

There were some whoppers. Nationally, there was the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which raised taxes $241 billion. In Missouri, there was the Outstanding Schools Act, which raised taxes $365 million. As parts of these, or separate issues, you could find discussed a BTU tax, an inland waterways user tax, a luxury tax and a value added tax. Affluent retirees were asked to pay more income tax on Social Security benefits, and various deductions on tax forms were limited, which effectively is a tax increase. Some of the tax categories were applied retroactively, meaning that tax payments were obliged for a period of time before certain taxes even existed.

Nationally and at the state level, higher motor fuels taxes were put into effect, though the Missouri increase had previously been approved and was stepped up to provide flood relief. In Illinois, officials mused over an income tax surcharge. There were all varieties of "sin taxes" proposed, which are supposedly taxes that are good for us. Tobacco (for smoking and smokeless) and alcohol were the prime targets. There was even a LUST tax in Illinois. It's not what you think: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks, a three-tenths of a cent tax increase to provide cleanup.

Some tax increases were reasonable in our minds. On two occasions last year, we supported tax levy increases to upgrade facilities of the Cape Girardeau public schools. Unfortunately, other Cape Girardeau taxpayers did not see the issues the way we did.

We hold our collective breath in anticipation of the fiscal impact of the Clintons' Health Security Act.

A Washington organization called The Tax Foundation gauges the obligations of citizens by what it calls Tax Freedom Day. The day signifies the date on which the average person would finish paying federal, state and local taxes if all earnings since Jan. 1 were turned over to various governments. Tax Freedom Day last year was May 3. (The 1994 date will be announced this morning.) Compare that to Tax Freedom Day in 1940: March 8. The foundation also calculates the tax bite taken from each day's earnings. Last year, it was 2 hours and 41 minutes. In other words, if you get to your place of employment at 8 a.m. each day, all the work you do until 10:41 a.m. goes to the government. Fifty-four years ago, the obligations were satisfied by 8:45 a.m.

The United States remains a great nation in which the way is paid by the hard-earned dollars of hard-working citizens. To object to taxes is characteristically American, though most own up to the obligation with a sense that the money pays the price of freedom. However, the constant stress of more taxes weighs down the system, discouraging the hard work and invention that drive free enterprise and ultimately threatening our liberty. As we render our income taxes tomorrow, it is necessary to remember that our vigilance about these increased burdens should not be limited to one day a year.