Tax Day 2017: Notes and Sources

March 28, 2017

Tax Day shows how your individual income taxes were spent. Those are a portion of the taxes withheld from your paycheck, and due this year on April 18 (not April 15, as usual).

Tax Day materials do not include corporate taxes or the individual payroll taxes that directly fund Social Security and Medicare. To read more about where federal revenues come from, visit Where the Money Comes From.

Our Tax Day materials show how federal funds were spent during fiscal year 2016, the time period that most closely corresponds to the calendar year for which income taxes are due.

In order to do this analysis, we separate federal funds from trust funds. Trust funds, generated from sources such as payroll taxes, can only be used for specific programs like Social Security and Medicare. All other funds are federal funds, including revenue from your federal income taxes, and can be used for a wide variety of purposes.

We use projected federal fund “outlays” for fiscal year 2016 as reported  by the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Public Budget Database, released in February 2016. These are the most recent available data at the time of publishing.

Tax Day Categories

When OMB publishes federal budget data, it uses several categories of spending called functions, and within those, subfunctions.

NPP uses 13 different budget categories to sort federal spending. These do not correspond exactly to the official government functions. Rather, they are meant to organize the many government subfunctions into more intuitive groupings. In order to create our Tax Day materials, federal fund outlays were sorted into the following categories:

Education

Elementary, secondary, higher and vocational education.

Subfunctions: 501, 502, 503

Example programs:

  • Pell Grants
  • Special Education
  • Title I grants to disdadvantaged public schools

Energy & Environment

Natural resources and environment, conservation, and supply and use of energy.

Subfunctions: 271, 272, 274, 276, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306

Example programs:

  • Rural Clean Water Program
  • Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
  • Environmental Protection Agency

Food & Agriculture

Agriculture as well as nutritional assistance programs.

Subfunctions: 351, 352, 605

Example programs:

  • Agriculture Disaster Relief Program
  • SNAP (food stamps)
  • National School Lunch Program

Government

Law enforcement and the justice system, commerce, overhead costs of the federal government, and undistributed offsetting receipts.

Subfunctions: 372, 373, 376, 751, 752, 753, 754, 801, 802, 803, 804, 805, 806, 808, 809, 922, 929, 951, 952, 953, 954, 959

Example programs:

  • Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
  • Citizenship and Immigration Services
  • Congressional Budget Office
  • U.S. House of Representatives and Senate

Housing & Community

Housing assistance and credit, community development, disaster relief, and services supporting social needs.

Subfunctions: 371, 451, 452, 453, 506, 604, 925

Example programs:

  • Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
  • Community Development Block Grants
  • Head Start

Interest on Federal Debt

Annual interest paid on the national debt, net of interest income received by assets the federal government owns.

Subfunctions: 901, 902, 903, 908, 909 

International Affairs

Diplomatic, development, and humanitarian activities abroad.

Subfunctions: 151, 153, 154, 155

Example programs:

  • State Department
  • Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria
  • Peace Corps

Health

Health care programs and services, and occupational and consumer health & safety.

Subfunctions: 551, 552, 554, 571, 921, 926

Example programs:

  • Medicaid
  • Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

Pentagon & Military

National defense, nuclear weapons activities, war costs, and international security assistance.

Subfunctions: 051, 053, 054, 152

Example programs:

  • Weapons acquisition
  • Military operations in Afghanistan
  • Army National Guard

Science

General science research and space flight research and activities.

Subfunctions: 251, 252

Example programs:

  • NASA
  • National Science Foundation

Unemployment & Labor

Income security programs, federal employee retirement and disability, and job training.

Subfunctions 504, 505, 601, 602, 603, 609, 651, 923

Example programs:

  • Training and Employment Services
  • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

Transportation

Development and support of air, water, ground, and other transportation.

Subfunctions: 401, 402, 403, 407

Example programs:

  • Transportation Security Administration
  • Federal Aviation Administration

Veterans Benefits

Health care, housing, education and income security for veterans.

Subfunctions: 701, 702, 703, 704, 705

Example programs:

  • Veterans Employment and Training
  • Medical and Prosthetic Research
  • VA hospitals

Tax Receipt

NPP’s personalized and state average tax receipts shows how much of your federal income taxes went to each of the 13 categories specified above, using federal fund outlays data from the OMB Public Budget Database, as described.

In addition, the receipt shows how much of your taxes went to particular programs within each of those categories, using data from OMB’s Public Budget Database, as follows:

Education

Pell Grants, Work Study and Other Student Aid

Includes outlays under Education subfunctions for the Account, “Student Financial Assistance.”

Elementary & Secondary Education

Includes outlays under Education subfunctions for the Bureau, “Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.”

National Endowment for the Arts

Includes outlays under Education subfunctions for the Agency, “National Endowment for the Arts.”

Energy & Environment

Environmental Protection Agency

Includes outlays under Energy & Environment subfunctions for the Bureau, “Environmental Protection Agency.”

Energy efficiency and renewable energy

Includes outlays under Energy & Environment subfunctions for the Account, “Energy efficiency and renewable energy.”

Food & Agriculture

SNAP (food stamps)

Includes outlays under Food & Agriculture subfunctions for the Account, “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.”

Federal Crop Insurance

Includes under Food & Agriculture subfunctions for the Account, “Federal Crop Insurance.”

Government

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Includes outlays under Government subfunctions for the Bureau, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”

Federal Prisons

Includes outlays under Government subfunctions for the Bureau, “Federal Prison System.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (U.S. ICE)

Includes outlays under Government subfunctions, for the Bureau, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Medicare & Health

Medicaid

Includes outlays under Health Care subfunctions for the Account, “Medicaid.”

Medicare

Includes outlays under Health Care subfunction 571, “Medicare.”

Children’s Health Insurance Program

Includes outlays under Health Care subfunctions for the Account, “Children’s Health Insurance Program.”

Housing & Community

Head Start & Related

Includes outlays under Housing & Community subfunctions for the Account, “Children and Family Services.”

Homeless Assistance Grants

Includes outlays under Housing & Community subfunctions for the Account, “Homeless Assistance Grants.”

International Affairs

Department of State

Includes outlays under International Affairs subfunctions for the Agency, “Department of State.”

U.S. Agency for International Development (US AID)

Includes outlays under International Affairs subfunctions for the Bureau, “Agency for International Development.”

Pentagon & Military

Military Personnel

Includes outlays under Military subfunctions for the Bureau, “Military Personnel.”

Lockheed Martin

Includes Department of Defense FY 2016 contracts for Lockheed Martin, according to USASpending.gov; accessed April 6, 2017.

Nuclear Weapons

Includes outlays for subfunction 053, “Atomic Energy Defense Activities.”

Science

NASA

Includes outlays under Science subfunctions for the Bureau, “National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

National Science Foundation

Includes outlays under Science subfunctions for the Bureau, “National Science Foundation.”

Transportation

Transportation Security Administration

Includes outlays under Transportation subfunctions for the Bureau, “Transportation Security Administration.”

Federal Aviation Administration

Includes outlays under Transportation subfunctions for the Bureau, “Federal Aviation Administration.”

Unemployment & Labor

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

Includes outlays under Unemployment & Labor subfunctions for the Account, “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.”

Job Training and Employment Programs

Includes outlays for subfunction 504, “Training and Employment.”

Veterans Benefits

Payments for disability, death, etc.

Includes outlays under Veterans Benefits subfunctions for the Account, “Compensation.”

Veterans Health Administration

Includes outlays under Veterans Benefits subfunctions for the Bureau, “Veterans Health Administration.”

Average Tax Bill

To generate average taxes paid for the U.S. and for each state, we used tax return data from the IRS. Our receipts are generated using information for tax year 2014, the latest available, state-level information at the time of publication: https://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-Historic-Table-2.

The averages are calculated by dividing income tax amount by the total number of applicable returns. The income tax amount represents total income taxes owed after deductions and credits but does not reflect refundable tax credits, such as the refundable portion of the EITC.

Totals were then adjusted for inflation from calendar year 2014 to 2016 dollars using deflators from OMB's FY 2017 budget materials, Table 10.1. in the Historical Tables.