If it’s April, it must be time for the battle of the tax-policy wonks. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation issued a report yesterday declaring that Tax Freedom Day falls on April 13 this year, and the more liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities quickly criticized the foundation’s methodology.

Tax Freedom Day is supposed to be the day when the average taxpayer will have worked enough to pay his or her taxes for the full year. The foundation calculates it in a simple way, by dividing the amount of taxes everyone pays by the amount of income we earn.

Trouble is, that figure overstates the tax burden faced by most Americans.  The CBPP’s Robert Greenstein writes:

The CBO data suggest that 80 percent of U.S. households pay federal tax at a lower rate than the Tax Foundation’s estimated “average” federal tax burden.

So “average” clearly is not the same thing as “typical.” If you are one of the fortunate few who pays an average, or above-average, amount of taxes, you’ll be pleased to know that Tax Freedom Day falls eight days earlier this year than last. That’s partly because of tax cuts contained in the stimulus bill and partly because of the state of the economy. The recession, the Tax Foundation notes, “has reduced tax collections even faster than it has reduced income.”