Thanks to December's generous Budget, they will work one day less for the government this year. But as workers prepare to go to the polls next year, it is unlikely that finance minister Brian Cowen will have enough cash to repeat the pre-election tax giveaways that helped the government to get re-elected the last time around.

Those giveaways brought tax freedom day back to 5 May in 2002, the earliest in more than a decade.

"We can look forward to tax freedom day coming forward by one day in 2007, or maybe two at a push, " said Pat McArdle, chief economist at Ulster Bank. "But even with a gain of two days, tax freedom day would fall on 6 May in 2007 compared with 5 May in 2002, indicating that the real tax burden has increased between elections."

Nevertheless, international comparisons show that Ireland is more lightly taxed than any other developed economy. Australians must work until Thursday before they start working for themselves while the British have another four weeks to wait.

The picture is even bleaker in the high-tax economies of continental Europe. The average German has to work until 16 June, while in the high-spending welfare states of France and Scandinavia, workers must wait until July before they start earning for themselves. This means they spend more than half the year working for the taxman.

In the US, the free-market Tax Foundation declared tax freedom day on 26 April, almost two weeks ahead of Ireland. But when a broader measure of government spending is used, tax freedom day in America is delayed until 16 May, more than a week later than in Ireland.

Ireland's low taxes have been blamed for serious shortcomings in health and other public services, but McArdle disputed this.

"Whatever may be wrong in the Irish economy and the standard of public services we have, it is not due to a lack of taxation, " he said. "Income taxes and PRSI might look low compared with other countries but the overall tax burden in Ireland is not low when you look at it in relation to the level of services provided by the government."

McArdle said other European countries need higher taxes because they have higher national debt, more people on welfare, and higher spending on the military and defence.

One of the biggest differences is higher social security taxes such as PRSI levied in Europe, where most retired people rely on the taxpayer to pay their pensions.

In Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands, a far higher proportion of workers look after themselves through privately-funded pension schemes.

McArdle calculates tax freedom day every year by comparing Ireland's national income with the total tax raised by the Minister for Finance. Ten years ago, it fell on 13 May but a booming economy and deep cuts in income and capital taxes since then mean that tax freedom day now arrives almost a week earlier.

According to McArdle, it gives a much better measure of the true size of Budget tax changes by excluding the impact of indexing income tax bands and credits, while including the extra taxes generated by additional government spending.

"Indexing the bands and credits is not tax a giveaway, " he said. "It just keeps the percentage of tax you pay on your earnings constant from year to year."