Slideshow: Seven Tax Day Interactive Visualizations to Understand Where Your Money Goes

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April 18, 2011 • 8:30 am PDT
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Where Did My Tax Dollars Go?

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Today is Tax Day. While most Americans think their tax bill is fair, many have no idea where exactly their hard-earned money goes. Let's face it, many leaders in government aren't so clear on how much tax money goes to all the different government-funded programs.

So Google and Eyebeam hosted a contest to find the best data visualization of where our tax money goes. Here are seven standouts. Think of them as visual receipts for your tax bill. One of them actually is, and it's pretty funny.

Anil Kandangath won $5,000 for his first place entry Where Did My Tax Dollars Go?, an extremely easy to use visual calculator of government spending.

On the left column you see what percentage of your paycheck goes to Uncle Sam: 19.6 percent if you are single making $40,000, 32 percent if you make $400,000.

Then an interactive pie chart pops up telling you where that money goes within the government. It's elegant and simple at first glance, but more detail displays when you click each budget item.

Alex Goldmark
Follow me at @alexgoldmark

See all the entries in the Google / Eyebeam data visualization contest.

Posted in: Business,; News

Tags: politics,; business,; media,; data visualization,; irs,; google,; infographic,; government spending,; tax day,; taxes infographic,; eyebeam

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