March 26, 2024
National Priorities Project's Tax Day shows how your individual income taxes were spent. Those are a portion of the taxes withheld from your paycheck.
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 the corresponding fiscal year, 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 analyzed federal fund “outlays” for for the fiscal year as reported by the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) and available from the Government Printing Office. These are the most recent available data for legally enacted federal spending at the time of publishing. In some cases, we use additional federal government data sources, noted below.
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:
Elementary, secondary, higher and vocational education.
Subfunctions: 501, 502, 503
Example programs:
Natural resources and environment, conservation, and supply and use of energy.
Subfunctions: 271, 272, 274, 276, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306
Example programs:
Agriculture as well as nutritional assistance programs.
Subfunctions: 351, 352, 605
Example programs:
Federal judicial and litigative activities, commerce, overhead costs of the federal government.
Subfunctions: 372, 373, 376, 752, 801, 802, 803, 804, 805, 806, 808, 809, 922, 929
Example programs:
Housing assistance and credit, community development, disaster relief, and services supporting social needs.
Subfunctions: 371, 451, 452, 453, 506, 604, 925
Example programs:
Annual interest paid on the national debt, net of interest income received by assets the federal government owns.
Subfunctions: 901, 902, 903, 908, 909
Diplomatic, development, and humanitarian activities abroad.
Subfunctions: 151, 153, 154, 155
Example programs:
Health care programs and services, and occupational and consumer health & safety.
Subfunctions: 551, 552, 554, 571, 921, 926
Example programs:
National defense, nuclear weapons activities, war costs, and international security assistance. Federal law enforcement, criminal justice, and correctional activities. Health care, housing, education and income security for veterans.
Subfunctions: 051, 053, 054, 152, 701, 702, 703, 704, 705, 751, 753, 754
Example programs:
General science research and space flight research and activities.
Subfunctions: 251, 252
Example programs:
Income security programs, federal employee retirement and disability, and job training.
Subfunctions 504, 505, 601, 602, 603, 609, 651, 923
Example programs:
Development and support of air, water, ground, and other transportation.
Subfunctions: 401, 402, 403, 407
Example programs:
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:
College Financial Aid
Includes outlays under Education subfunctions for the Bureau, “Office of Federal Student Aid.”
K-12 Education
Includes outlays under Education subfunctions for the Bureau “Office of Elementary and Secondary Education."
Environmental Protection Agency
Includes outlays under Energy & Environment subfunctions for the Bureau, “Environmental Protection Agency.”
Managing wildfires
Includes outlays under Energy & Environment subfunctions for the Account, “Wildland Fire Management.”
Renewable energy & energy efficiency
Includes outlays under Energy & Environment subfunctions for the Account, "Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy."
SNAP (food stamps)
Includes outlays under Food & Agriculture subfunctions for the Account, “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.”
School Lunch & other food programs
Includes under Food & Agriculture subfunctions for the Account, “Child Nutrition Programs.” Includes school lunch, school breakfast, summer meal programs, and more.
Internal Revenue Service
Includes outlays in Government subfunctions under the Bureau "Internal Revenue Service."
Postal Service
Includes outlays in Government subfunctions under the Agency “Postal Service.”
Medicare and Medicaid
Includes outlays under Health Care subfunctions for the Bureau, “Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Includes outlays under Health subfunctions for Bureau "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
Mental Health & Substance Abuse
Includes outlays under Health subfunctions for Bureau "Substance Use And Mental Health Services Administration."
Housing and urban development
Includes outlays under Housing & Community subfunctions for the Agency “Department of Housing and Urban Development."
Disaster Relief
A sum of outlays under Housing & Community subfunctions for the Account "Disaster Relief Fund.”
Diplomacy
Includes outlays under the subfunction 153, “Conduct of foreign affairs.”
Foreign Aid
Includes outlays under the subfunction 151, “International development and humanitarian assistance.”
Pentagon and Military
Includes outlays under subfunctions 051 (Department of Defense- Military), 053 (Atomic energy defense activities), 054 (Defense-related activities), and 152 (International security assistance).
Pentagon
Includes outlays under subfunction 051 (Department of Defense- Military).
Pentagon Contractors
Includes all contracts awarded by the Department of Defense in FY 2023, according to USASpending.gov, as of March 22, 2024.
Veterans Benefits
Includes outlays under all subfunctions defined as Veterans Benefits above, 701, 702, 703, 704, 705.
Military Personnel
Includes outlays under Militarism subfunctions for the Bureau, “Military Personnel.”
Lockheed Martin
Includes all contracts awarded by the Department of Defense to Lockheed Martin in FY 2023, according to USASpending.gov, as of March 25, 2024.
Nuclear Weapons
Includes outlays for subfunction 053, “Atomic Energy Defense Activities.” This includes nuclear weapons and related activities in the Department of Energy. It does not include expenses for nuclear weapons delivery systems in the Department of Defense.
Aid to foreign militaries
Includes outlays under subfunction 152 (International security assistance).
ICE & CBP (deportations and detentions)
A sum of outlays under Government subfunctions for the Bureaus, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection" and "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
Boeing
Includes all contracts awarded by the Department of Defense to Boeing in FY 2023, according to USASpending.gov, as of March 22, 2024.
Federal prisons
Includes outlays in Government subfunctions under the Bureau "Federal Prison System."
SpaceX (Pentagon)
Includes all contracts awarded by the Department of Defense to Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in FY 2023, according to USASpending.gov, as of March 25, 2024.
NASA
Includes outlays under Science subfunctions for the Agency, “National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”
SpaceX - NASA
Includes all contracts awarded by NASA to Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in FY 2023, according to USASpending.gov, as of March 25, 2024.
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Includes outlays for Transportation subfunctions under Bureau "Transportation Security Administration."
Federal Aviation Administration
Includes outlays for Transportation subfunctions under Bureau "Federal Aviation Administration."
Child Tax Credit
Includes outlays for Unemployment and Labor subfunctions for Account, "Payment Where Child Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax.”
Low Income Home Energy Assistance
Includes outlays for Unemployment and Labor subfunctions for Account, "Low Income Home Energy Assistance.”
Refugee Assistance
Includes outlays under Unemployment & Labor subfunctions for the Account, “Refugee and Entrant Assistance.”
To generate average taxes paid for the U.S. and for each state, we used tax return data from the IRS. The most recent state data are for 2021.
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. The figure is then inflation-adjusted to 2023 dollars.
