In case you were not aware, yesterday was something called “Equal Pay Day” to (I guess) raise awareness for fairness in pay between men and women in the workforce. That sounds great, right? I think most people believe that men and women should be treated equitably.

The date of Equal Pay Day is picked based on the previous year’s data on the pay differences between men and women. According to Pay-Equity.org, the day “symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.” George Takei even tweeted about it:

George Takei seems to have become pop culture’s authority on witty quips about society. Since he is usually short, makes a point well, and uses humor to show some kind of absurdity, people look to them as checkmate cards. So if you find yourself disagreeing with George Takei, well then, you do not be surprised when people are laughing at how silly you are.

After all, how is it fair that a woman would now just be getting paid for her work?

The problem is that this idea of unfairness in pay between men and women has been debunked over and over again. The statistics they use are misleading because the jobs that men and women typically have are different. In other words, it’s an apples to oranges comparison.

But given that today is Tax Day, if you apply this idea of how long it takes to actually start earning money, it really does make a good point. As of today, April 15, based on all of the taxes I paid on my income last year (between local, state, and federal), I still have a few days before I’ll start being able to pocket my money if I frontloaded all of my taxes. If you take other taxes into account, like sales tax, I have to wait even longer.

So ask yourself: if you are not given the choice whether or not you pay taxes, who really owns your paycheck? Who is deciding how much you keep? And given how much is taken from you, are you satisfied with the results of what your money is spent on?