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Sorry America, Your Taxes Aren't High (bloomberg.com)
Americans generally feel they're being over-taxed, especially around this time of the year. But is that really true? An article on Bloomberg investigates: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development analyzed how 35 countries tax wage-earners, making it possible to compare tax burdens across the world's biggest economies. Each year, the OECD measures what it calls the "tax wedge," the gap between what a worker gets paid and what they actually spend or save. Included are income taxes, payroll taxes, and any tax credits or rebates that supplement worker income. Excluded are the countless other ways that governments levy taxes, such as sales and value-added taxes, property taxes, and taxes on investment income and gains. Guess who came out at the top of the list? No. Not the U.S. At the top are Belgium and France, while workers in Chile and New Zealand are taxed the least. America is in the bottom third.
I don't think anyone thinks that America's income taxes straight out are that high. But now add in property taxes, which are very significant, social security, etc. That really starts to cover the effective tax rate that you really pay. Then also all the government 'fees' and requirements you pay (required backflow valve inspections at your cost, etc.). Finally, consider what you actually get for it, as we don't get government pensions or healthcare or any kinds of real social service for this money.
So basically they really aren't counting the total real taxes paid, and aren't considering the value of those taxes. Not sure how really useful this comparison is at the end of the day.....
"Yes, you're getting forcibly fucked in the ass, but the dick's on the small side, so it's okay."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Yes they are, for a non-socialized country they sure are. I pay over 50% in combined taxes, regulatory fees and permits, and still have to shell out more for things like healthcare and get no government benefit because I "make too much." So bite me.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Since health insurance is required by the government it is a tax, even if you don't want to call it that.
Why is that figure omitted from the comparison?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
who only ever posts on two subjects: 1) How all forms of taxation are legally sanctioned theft and tyranny and 2) How she absolutely supports increasing military spending and having the biggest and most powerful military in the world.
Tax the rich. Give me Basic Income.
I may be forced in to bankruptcy by medical bills but at least I'm FREE!
For example, if a country's taxes include universal health care, then the equivalent cost to Americans would be taxes + healthcare costs, not just taxes. Same in regards to things like universal access to education (including college), or a better social support net for elders past working age.
Comparing buckets that are supposed to cover differing things and noticing they are differing sizes really doesn't show anything at all. It's a false equivalency that's misleading at best.
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
It's not even that the rich have to be that smart to pay much less (if anything) in taxes. It's that they can afford to hire people to find/exploit every tax loophole they can. I feel relatively safe in assuming that Trump doesn't pour over his own tax returns every year making sure that everything is set up for him to pay as little as possible. He has people to do that for him.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
No, American taxes (other then the corporate tax) are not high - compared to countries that are run by tyrants or countries that have bought-in to Marxist economics, etc
Yes, American taxes are insanely high - compared to what they historically were and to what our nation's founders intended. The US government is currently taking in more taxes than ever before in its history and consuming a larger share of the nation's wealth than at any time other than during actual existential wars (not counting smaller wars that did not risk the nation and that the nation'selites had no plans to win).
The United States is a designed system. It was engineered by its founders with a specific plan, a design spec, the Constitution. Over the decades, our politicians and judges have mangled that design with various "reforms" like the addition of income taxes, term limits, the direct election of Senators so they are now a super-House and no longer represent the states, etc which allmay be viewd as waivers by which our elites excuse themselves from adhering to the nation's design spec. Any time you operate a designed system outside its specified limits and operating instructions while papering-over it with wavers you are asking for disaster - just ask the crews of the Challenger and the Columbia.
These articles that people keep coming up with that compare the US to other nations on things like healthcare, taxes, military, etc are simply stupid. They are apples-to-oranges comparisons. Different nations are organized differently, have different roles in the world, different types of politics and economics, different cultures and histories, etc. When there is genocide or a major natural disaster in the world, people often ask where the US is. Nobody asks what Paraguay (random example, with no intended disrespect) is going to do about it.
You get the biggest, best-equipped military in the world. One (admittedly large by area and population) nation, effectively dominating a large portion of the planet and strongly influencing the rest. If you take off the gloves, you could take on the entire world and win.
You've done that at the expense of healthcare, education, and social programs. It's a choice you make every election cycle.
The problem isn't that just one tax - the payroll/income tax being high.
It's that after you pay that you still have to pay social-security (which isn't operating in the way it commissioned to operate), the medicare, state income tax (in most states), health insurance - which in now a tax per the supreme court, car inspection, vehicle registration, property tax, sales tax at the register, "universal service fee", among other things that creep in we are much more highly taxed than we get credit for when you're only looking at payroll/income.
For a couple of years I was at 53% removed from my paycheck before I got paid, THEN the sales tax etc.... happened.
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Having taxes that are too high is not a relative observation. It's a benefit vs cost issue. Are the taxes we pay being used effectively? Do we pay more into the system than we need to? Is there a lot of graft in the system? Are taxes creating new government organizations that reduce individual freedom without providing something of equivalent value to society in exchange? Are the services we're paying for something that we democratically agree is necessary and useful or are the services the remnants of failed policy? Do our taxes get funneled into bailing out rich banks instead of helping the middle class or helping the poor move up into the middle class?
Just because the US pays less taxes than Sweden does not mean we are denied the right to point out that taxes are too high. It's relative to what we as a society want and what we actually get from those taxes, and not relative to what a person in another countries pays.
Also remember your intro to macroeconomics course. Saving money versus spending money has serious economic repercussions. And it is going to be difficult to compare different cultures and economies based on those metrics. Americans are not savers, and we tend to run our economy with the heat turned up higher than some other countries would find comfortable. (for better or for worse)
If the entire Earth had the same tax rate, we wouldn't say that taxes were average. What if the tax was 95% of your income above $10k? That would be high, but it wouldn't be higher relative to any other country if they were all the same. The argument is ridiculous.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The US income tax system is highly progressive. Currently the bottom 45% of US households pay no federal income tax. So when you look at the tax burden of the average American family (ie at the 50th percentile) that family is only paying a little federal income tax. To get to the number in the article it is other taxes like property tax, social security, state tax, etc.
I would absolutely willingly pay more tax if I received services I need for that additional tax, at a price lower than I could otherwise obtain those services. That's pretty much the philosophy that has made the tax rates in the Nordic countries so high.
Yes because everyone has the means to "convert earned income into investment income".
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Well, given that about 40% or more of the US effectively pays "0" income tax, I"m sorry, that's just not right.
Everyone should have skin in the game and pay in.
I con't think of Fair Tax/Flat Tax as BS. If you make $X, you pay %X.
That's about as fair as it gets.
If you want to make it a national sales tax, that seems to get even more fair (no tax on food), but at that point, you start to bring in revenue from all citizens, even criminals have to buy stuff from stores.
And the rich tend to buy more items, expensive items, so this would hit them likely even more than today's "progressive" tax system.
But bottom line, no one should get by without some skin in the game.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Investment income taxes have to compete globally, including the double taxation applied.
((1 - Corporate tax rate) * (1 - Capital gains tax rate) * Average national investment return) has to be globally competitive or your nation will get _no_ investment.
In first world nations with growing economies corporate taxes + capital gains taxes on investments are about 45%. Those who claim capital gains taxes are too low all forget to count the corporate taxes already paid on the same income (in the case of stocks).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Of relevance to that matter is the fact that the median income is about HALF of the mean income. So that person at the 50th percentile, that "average American" by one measure, is only making half of the "average American" by the measure most people probably think of (add up how much we all make and divide by number of people, i.e. mean income). It's not surprising that people making not even half of average are paying a very low tax rate. What SHOULD be surprising is that most Americans are making less than half of the "average American".
Rich people want more people to share their tax burden? See to it that more people get more income to be taxed, then. But if you want to hoard all the money, be prepared to pay for everything, because nobody else can.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
"Skin in the game" doesn't make sense in this context.
Why not? In my own life, I see that people who pay more in taxes care more about the government not wasting money. The people who pay no federal income taxes don't care what the government does, unless they get a check. Then they act like the program that pays them is a human rights issue.
You may argue that it is not rational that a person would care more about government efficiency just because they have to pay some small part of the bill. Sadly, the fact that a thought is not rational has no baring on many people.
That really ignores a few basic points.
First, the U.S. is a Democratic Republic, NOT a nation with a monarchy, a dictatorship, Communist rule, or Socialism. That puts it in a rather unique position as far as having a government structure that encourages less taxation and more self-reliance. (Not interested in trying to start the whole "which is better?" debate here... but just stating facts. I'd expect these other types of governance to impose higher taxes because they focus on the people working for the greater good of the whole, with government at the center, orchestrating things. In America, government is, at least in theory, "by the people, for the people" and exists to only do the basic tasks outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.)
Second, taxation in America is all spread out. The list of taxes is huge, and comes at the local and state level as much as at the Federal level. I'm no expert on the subject,but I'm confident that in many nations on their survey, taxation is much more centralized. In America, I can't even pay a cellphone or land line phone bill without getting hit with a list of various "nickle and dime" taxes for my municipality, city and state, followed by the Federally imposed ones like the FUSF (money they force you to pay to subsidize cheaper telecommunications offerings for the poor).
They already have a skin in the game, through sales tax, gas tax, etc
Notice that this study did not take into account all the hidden taxes. Also include the corporate income taxes that are baked into the prices of goods. Making Walmart pay corporate income tax makes a great political sound bite until you realize all the low income people shopping there paid it.
But as a percent of income the rich buy less, thus paying less taxes. That's why sales taxes are considered regressive, hitting the poor and middle class more.
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]
Every gallon of gas has federal tax on it. An insufficient amount, given the state of our infrastructure, but a federal tax none the less. Then there's also the corporate tax applied to every single thing you buy.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The Presidential race this time elected the best liar and conman who promptly set out screwing all of the ignorant racists who voted for him so that's not a very good example of effecting change. (Wall Street and corporations are firmly in control of the government.)
We stopped having Senators appointed by the state because they were much easier to buy off at the state level. Going back to that system would only make it more responsive to corporations and the rich.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Nobody with a paycheck pays 0%. Anyone that says that willfully disregards Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid taxes which are NOT exempted under any circumstance. Anyone making a paycheck is paying at a minimum the 15% social security and Medicare taxes. The lovely dishonesty about your claim is it's kinda true if you specifically narrow the count to a specific tax, 40% pay no federal income tax in addition to the SS and Medicare/Medicaid taxes.
You and Romney should get together and have lunch because you're being as dishonest as him in claiming 40% don't pay taxes, everyone earning a wage pays taxes including illegal imigrants who often pay social security and Medicare taxes but will never benefit from them.
And the most important bit is that the 47% paying no Federal Income taxes (a single tax) are in fact paying far higher percentages of their earnings in the remaining taxes than the richest people pay. No one is exempt from the 15% SS/Medicare/Medicaid taxes, everyone pays state income/sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, etc. The tax burden of the average person in Romney's "47%" is more than 50% of their income (the true working poor can have tax rates as high as 60-70% if they live in a state that taxes food) while people like Romney are paying 0-15% taxes if they pay any at all.
That level of dishonesty is infuriating because it's deliberately obscuring the truth with a lie by omission. The working poor aren't lazy people not paying taxes, they pay higher percentages of taxes than just about anyone else.
When you're living paycheck to paycheck, no, it is impractical to increase your 401k contributions.
I swear the average Slashdotter is a son of Trump or something - or at any rate has never experienced low incomes. Back in 1995, I actually got to the point that I couldn't eat for two days because I'd literally completely run out of money and food. I wasn't living extravagantly - a tiny black and white TV getting its signal via the antenna was my major entertainment, for example. No car. Cheap junk furniture.
I'm comfortable now, but it recently opened my eyes when I looked at the Wikipedia page of a city near where I live and found the median household income there is barely $20,000 a year. That, adjusted for inflation, is less than what I was earning in 1995 (ignoring inflation it's slightly higher.) That's household income - as in multiple people are trying to live from that money. I don't know how they do it, but I can pretty much guarantee they're not putting money into 401ks.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
What the study REALLY missed is what you get in return for your taxes.
For instance, Scandanavian taxes are not exactly low, but there is quite a lot of service provided.
I'd put forth the proposition that on a value basis, U.S. taxes are high.
Taxation is Theft, if you like socialism so much, I'll pay for your plane ticket to N. Korea.
What they also don't seem to remember is, the majority of that 47% vote republican.... they're just too stupid to know Romney was talking about them.
A map put out by the Tax Foundation of the 10 states with the highest and lowest percentage of filers with no federal tax liability shows that the states with the highest percentage of non-filers are, by-and-large, states that typically vote Republican, while the 10 states with the lowest percentage of non-filers tend to be Democratic-leaning.
So it's the same old story... democrats pay taxes, and republicans leach off democrats.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
You can't excuse something bad by pointing out it's worse elsewhere. Tell me, would you buy excusing Jim Crow by saying it was better than slavery? Not to say that taxation is as bad as those things, but it's the same argument.
Just because taxes could be higher, and just because they are even higher for somebody else, doesn't mean they aren't high.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Fun fact: if you add a universal basic income to a flat income tax, the net result is a progressive tax that automatically sets its brackets based on the level of income disparity.
Get rid of deductions, stop treating different types of income differently, tax everyone's everything the same percent, then give everyone the same lump sum as a tax credit, and pay anything they end up getting back in monthly installments (likewise allowing people to pay anything they owe monthly), and you've got a clean, simple system that puts a gentle pressure toward the mean income on everyone's incomes... or less gentle as the greater income disparity becomes.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
For instance, Scandanavian taxes are not exactly low, but there is quite a lot of service provided.
I'd put forth the proposition that on a value basis, U.S. taxes are high.
That depends on what you value. If you value having 19 nuclear aircraft carrier groups which enable the ability to interfere in anybody's business anywhere in the world pretty much at a moment's notice, US taxes are quite reasonable. Up until the election of Donald Trump, Americans hadn't paid any attention to anyone promoting isolationist polices since World War II, and as it turns out, Donald Trump isn't isolationist either, to the tune of 59 cruise missiles. Americans seem to like paying for the American Empire.
What fanatical point? In response to someone saying they weren't aware of Trump saying anything racist, I referred to a racist thing Trump said.
It's not moving the post, and it's not a red herring. I didn't say everyone who voted for Trump is a racist. I will say everyone who voted for Trump should have been aware of the racist things he said. It's not as if there was any lack of media coverage for Trump during the campaign.