On April 19, 1775, the Patriots at Concord and Lexington fired the first shots in the war for American Liberty. Their immediate motivation was preserving their right to bear arms. The broader reasons for the American Revolution included taxation without representation.

In some ways, we’re more heavily taxed and regulated now than the colonists were then, and our “representatives” largely look out for their own interests more than ours. So … what are we waiting for?

That’s a half-serious question. There are many reasons to forgo an armed revolt, but when you consider how much Americans today are taxed — and how much we spend complying with the tax code — it’s a wonder that we haven’t yet taken up arms.

Well, today is the deadline to file your income tax return. In our humble shop, we call it Income Redistribution Day, since most tax money confiscated from taxpayers is paid out to someone else. In honor of the “celebration,” let’s consider some numbers.

According to a new report by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, “Taxpayers will spend an estimated 6.93 billion hours to complete their 2025 taxes.” That’s actually down from its peak two years ago, but “tax compliance costs include $319.7 billion in lost time and at least $157.1 billion in out-of-pocket expenses.”

Unreal. We spend more on tax compliance than the GDP of most nations.

Using different data, The New York Times says, “If Americans spent that time on other things, they could generate an extra $94 billion per year.”

That’s bad news, of course. The good news is that Republican tax cuts — passed in 2017 and again in 2025 with zero Democrat votes in either chamber of Congress and signed both times by President Donald Trump — mean that virtually everyone owes less than they would have if Democrats had their way. More than 53 million filers used new exemptions.

On top of that, tax refunds hit a record high. As of today, nearly 70 million Americans have already received refunds, and another 35 million likely will. The average refund is $3,462, up 11% from last year.

That’s great news — unless you consider that more than 100 million Americans gave a loan to the federal government through excess withholding.

Shameless plug: Feel free to support The Patriot Post with part of that refund. We depend on our readers!

Speaking of withholding, that is an insidious way of collecting taxes. When your employer pays you, and Uncle Sam takes his cut before you even get the check, it obfuscates what you’re actually paying. If we all had to write a check payable to the U.S. Treasury every time we got paid, there would have been a revolution years ago.

Even with big refunds, the Pew Research Center finds that the Democrat message of envy and class division is working.

“Roughly six-in-ten adults now say the feeling that some wealthy people (61%) and corporations (60%) don’t pay their fair share bothers them a lot,” Pew says. Meanwhile, “60% of Americans say that the amount they pay in taxes is ‘more than their fair share’ given what they get from the federal government.” Naturally, that includes 68% of top earners.

A Fox News poll is even worse: “A record 70% of voters think the taxes they pay are too high,” while “what bothers people most about federal income taxes is the wealthy are not paying enough.”

Again, the Marxist message of envy has been so effective that most Americans want to pay lower taxes but tax “the other guy” more.

Yet even The Washington Post published a new editorial explaining that “the United States federal income tax is extremely progressive.” The editorial’s subtitle is, “The rich already pay more than their fair share.” The math the editors present is pretty convincing:

There were 30,382 tax filers with incomes of $10 million or more in 2023, the latest year IRS data is available. That includes all sources of income. This tiny group of people, less than 0.02 percent of all tax filers and 10,000 fewer than fit into Nationals Park, made 5.9 percent of all income — and paid 10.9 percent of all income taxes.

The editors find that the group that earns more and pays less is actually the second-highest tier, but there are millions of Americans in that income group, and Congress is unlikely to go after them.

On the flip side, the Tax Policy Center estimates that roughly 40% of U.S. households pay no federal income tax at all.

Of course, the income tax is only a sliver of the taxation picture. There are payroll taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes. Consumers pay corporate taxes through higher prices, too, and — someone tell President Trump — we pay tariffs in the same way. Regulations are another form of taxation, driving up the prices of goods and services.

Did I mention that the national debt is fast approaching $40 trillion?

In short, that news on Income Redistribution Day is a mix of good and bad. You can stew over it, revolt because of it, or just go get a free box of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and pass out in a sugar coma.

Follow Nate Jackson on X.