Tax Day 2013, Tax Receipts, and Trade-Offs

Trade-Offs

April 15—Tax Day—is fast approaching. As we do each year, NPP has published an interactive, personalized receipt that tracks your income tax dollars to the penny.

This year, we’re also launching a new Tax Day tool: trade-offs. Trade-offs estimates how much your city, congressional district, county, or state paid for federal programs in 2012. For example, right here in Northampton, MA, we paid about $7 million dollars for homeland security. Live in the Big Apple? You paid almost $10 billion towards interest on the debt. And the great state of California contributed about $19 million towards the National Endowment for the Arts.

But you can do more than just look up the numbers. You can also reallocate those dollars in a way that reflects your personal budget priorities. Want to hire some teachers, convert some homes to solar energy, or provide some medical care to veterans? You can do all that and then share your plan on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

After you’ve seen how U.S. income tax dollars were spent last year and generated your personal tax receipt, be sure to visit trade-offs to see what you and your neighbors bought.