In 1999, over 126 million federal income tax returns were filed by Americans -- and the personal income tax represented by those returns totaled approximately $877 billion dollars. According to Burton W. Folsom of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, during that year, the average American had to work 130 days to pay off his tax bill, essentially working for free from January 1, 1999, until May 11, the day on which he earned his "tax freedom." In 2002, the Internal Revenue Service collected over $1 trillion in individual income tax.

In a letter to Jean Baptiste Leroy in 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." Some advocates assert that Americans suffer under an unnecessarily heavy tax burden and argue that the tax code has gotten too cumbersome. The Internal Revenue Code has over 2.8 million words, while, in comparison, the Bible has 774,746 and the epic novel War and Peace has about 660,000. "The internal revenue code is a hodgepodge of self-contradicting, Machiavellian, and calculatedly incomprehensible rules and regulations..." said conservative columnist Linda Bowles. "The public toleration of this internal revenue system is a sign of spiritual and intellectual decay."

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) supports a plan to abolish the IRS and replace it with either a national sales tax or a flat tax system. But according to the Treasury Department, no research has been conducted to investigate the effects of replacing the current system.

And others argue that a federal income tax is necessary to support government programs and decrease the deficit. Since World War II, individual income tax has constituted more than 70 percent of all federal tax revenue. Welfare programs, education, and public services all rely on income tax for funding. Proponents of the income tax ask: Where would these programs be without income tax?

Think you know where you stand on this issue? During the course of this activity, we will ask you four more times: Do Americans pay too much in federal income tax? Based on your responses, we will argue the opposite points of view. Only your final vote will count toward the results of this poll.