How do we lower Maine’s tax burden?

Taxes are a complicated thing. You are taxed in many ways, not just on your income, and not just by one government. Indeed, American federalism guarantees that you are in fact taxed by your national government, you state government, your county government and your town government, to say nothing of the “fees” you pay to quasi-governmental organizations like licensing boards and industry funds.

This can make it difficult to get a handle on just how much tax you actually pay.

Monday was April 15, known with dread around the country as “tax day” for the federal income tax deadline it represents.

It also happens to come near another, rather depressing date: Tax Freedom Day, which was on Tuesday, April 16, this year.

That is the day that you stop working for the government, and start working for yourself. Prior to Tax Freedom Day, every penny you earn goes to some level of government.

According to the Tax Foundation, Americans will pay $3.4 trillion in federal taxes this year. They will also pay roughly $1.8 trillion in state and local taxes. In total, the $5.2 trillion that we pay in taxes represents 29 percent of this country’s income. If our money was pooled collectively, it would take until April 16 to pay off our government bill.

But let’s be clear, despite all that, it is absolutely better to live in some places than in others. If taken individually, certain states are far less confiscatory.

In Alaska, for instance, your Tax Freedom Day is March 25. In Maine, it is almost an entire month later, on April 20.

There are other ways of quantifying tax burden, of course.

Earlier this month, WalletHub released their study of state tax burdens, and the news for Maine was not good. We ranked as the third worst state in the country, behind only New York and Hawaii, on overall tax burden.

WalletHub looked at property taxes, individual income taxes and sales and excise taxes in its assessment. This prevents the analysis from focusing only on income taxes, and giving a pass to states that have higher taxes in other places.

Maine confiscates 10.84 percent of your income, while Alaska, the best state on taxes, takes only 5.1 percent.

Comparisons between Maine and New Hampshire have always been made, including by me, and the pushback on that comparison has always been that New Hampshire has a higher property tax burden, which makes up for its lack of income or sales tax.

And it is true, New Hampshire has a high property tax burden. The problem is that Maine does too. We have the fifth-highest property tax burden in the country. So, we both have crummy property taxes, but at least New Hampshire doesn’t soak you on income and sales.

Maine actually stacks up poorly against every regional and economic competitor it has. This is especially true of the three states that I consider the most important: New Hampshire, our next-door neighbor, ranks 46th, Massachusetts, the regional economic magnet, ranks 19th, and Florida, the climate magnet, ranks 47th.

So what do we do about this?

Gov. Janet Mills and her allies in the administration say to you either “nothing,” or “make it worse.” She views it as a triumph that her budget does not propose tax increases, even though she basically guarantees future increases will be necessary to afford state government appetites. The more progressive elements of her party in the Legislature have proposed more tax and fee hikes than I can even keep track of.

Spend more. It is the only idea they have. And it happens to be the very idea that caused this problem in the first place.

Perhaps instead, we should be using our record revenues and strong financial position to actually reduce taxes on the Maine people.

Matthew Gagnon of Yarmouth is the chief executive officer of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a free market policy think tank based in Portland. A Hampden native, he previously served as a senior strategist for the Republican Governors Association in Washington, D.C.