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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.
Smart people like Trump never pay them.
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.....
Sorry, but you've only been stabbed in an artery, so it's not actually bad compared to this guy was was shot in the face.
Just because others are taxed higher doesn't mean we aren't over taxed. I'm not saying we are overtaxed, but I think taxes could be lower, or spent more wisely.
"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
it's about what your government provides in return.
Our taxes may not be high, relatively speaking, but what we get in return for them in this country is still a complete fucking joke.
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.
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.
even though I've got several friends/family who've been saved by them (major medical issues, all hereditary/genetic that would have killed them without a ton of expensive medical care).
It's a knee jerk reaction because I can see the money coming out of my paycheck. The logical part of my brain knows I'm being foolish, and that I've lost way more to falling wages in the IT sector than I've ever lost to taxes. But my lizard brain kicks in every year in April with a mix of anger and fear.
Now, if we had single payer health care I think I could reign the lizard brain in.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Forgot to ad the forced insurance payments that are in fact taxes. $900 a month for both my wife and I. I pay more in taxes+the forced insurance payment than the canadians do and they dont have to pay co-pays and their pharmaceuticals are not allowed to be price gouged.
So add that in and now you have the REAL number to compare, because those countries all have universal healthcare for their citizens.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Americans may pay less taxes, but we also get far fewer services.
The closest we have to retirement pensions is Social Security, which is a laughable amount of money. In other countries, you can retire without dedicating a chunk of salary to a gambling scheme---the ubiquitous 401K.
We have no public health care, so we pay higher costs out of our own salaries.
Our public education system is woefully underfunded, and higher education is very costly. It would be nice if everyone smart enough to be a doctor or an engineer could just decide to go to school. Who knows?---it might even help with the health care costs and H1B issues if students didn't have to mortgage their futures just for a chance at those professions.
Let's not forget the embarrassing state of our infrastructure. If a bridge collapses, maybe the media frenzy will force the politicians to do something. Until then, they can rust, rot, or erode away.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Countries like Belgium are pretty messed up: high taxes on earnings from labor but no taxes on earnings from capital (rich get richer just for being rich).
But, if you look around the world, there are some countries (e.g. Denmark) where poverty is basically a solved problem. In Denmark, essentially no one is trapped desperate poverty - in contrast to countries like the Philippines, or Mexico, or the United States. In Denmark, no one lays awake in the wee hours of the morning how they're going to afford to put their kids through college or not fall into poverty in retirement or not get bankrupted by an expensive medical condition. Everyone has financial security.
And the recipe for financial security is simple: high taxes on the rich and low government corruption with a focus on providing socioeconomic security for ordinary people in the country.
Except NZ has more total Taxes, measuring them this way is weird, they really should be measured as % GDP.
NZ is about average for the OECD, US is still third from the bottom at 25%, but behind Mexico and Chile, not NZ and Chile.
15% GST is a lot of extra taxing not captured.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
When income tax was created the peoples voice was disconnected and so today a great deal of taxes are used in a manner the taxpayers would not approve of. And there is a problem with Americans have viable and heard voice in their government business. Soooo http://3seas.org/pmwiki-gov/ read, share and with your representatives so they may actually know how to represent you. And know, they don't just work in their respective states but on teams in congress.
Personally I do not approve of my taxes beiung used for US Military Industrial Complex warmongering, nor for supporting the US MIC "in" to warmongering in the middle east (israel - which if israeli's are such good business people, they really don't need so much welfare, from so many sources)
It might help if we actually saw more benefit from our taxes. Improved services and infrastructure, universal healthcare, improvements to education... but instead most of the money I pay in taxes goes to buying more military hardware and endless wars.
But probably not, people are shockingly blind to the benefits of living in a society, believing instead that their rugged individualism would serve them better.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
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.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Just let the taxes slice in half. Less taxes is better. Fck the socialists.
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
"...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.
Guess who made an accurate tax survey? No. Not the OECD.
What the fuck is the point of a survey on tax burden when you're going to exclude a lot of it? My property taxes aren't some meaningless number, paid for by scrounging loose change from underneath my car seat.
This survey is as pointless as asking what megacorps pay in taxes every year...you know, excluding tax loopholes of course...
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
Americans hate paying taxes because the US government is dysfunctional and doesn't use the tax money wisely. Here in Canada, we pay a lot more taxes than in the US, but there are far fewer people angry at the tax level than in the US because we get things for our money, most notably universal single-payer health care.
In counties like Sweden and Denmark that have really high tax rates, most people are OK with that because the government provides many services.
I really don't see a way out for the USA given the level that political discourse has sunk to. I'm just glad I don't live there.
Mark 2030 on your calendar. That's when the majority of baby boomers are retired, retirees will outnumber workers, and two-thirds of the federal budget will go to Social Security/Medicare. Taxes will have to go way up to pay for everything else.
Did anybody actually think that US taxes were high? They're pretty low, I pay way more income tax and sales tax than an American would, so I always assumed that Americans knew that their taxes were really low.
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.
You get the largest military in the history of the planet. That's what stupid Americans want, so that's what stupid Americans get.
I don't respond to AC's.
I pay 10% of my salary in property taxes, and an assortment of sales taxes - neither of these are part of the article's analysis.
I don't have a problem paying higher taxes, as long as it goes to the right things (infrastructure, education, meaningful social services, etc). The problem is our government (especially federal) likes to burn our tax money on some pretty useless crap (exorbitant defense, contractors padding their sheets, etc).
Get a fucking job, and quit trying to be a sponge off society.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It might help if we actually saw more benefit from our taxes.
Done.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
In the UK almost noone fills in a tax return for income tax. VAT - the sales tax - is always added to the displayed price, not afterwards. The ONLY tax of which this is not true is the local property tax; you have to pay that separately. Lo and behold, that's the one that the government works hard to freeze...
Tax the rich.
The rich can leave, or at least move their wealth to somewhere the government can't reach. Wealth/capital is fluid and goes where it's value is highest. Who will you tax when you run out of rich people? As Margaret Thatcher famously quipped;"Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money."
Give me Basic Income.
Why should others be obligated to simply *give* you that which they worked hard and sacrificed to obtain? What right do you have to essentially make people who create wealth slaves simply to support you? Go make your own damned money and stop trying to get the government to do your thieving from others for you!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
As long as taxes are non-zero the populist call will be taxes are too high. No matter how benefit, army, police, roads, civil structure, (health care in advanced nations), laws people get out of it, there will always be some who call for lower taxes.
What have the Romans ever done for us?
Or, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society..."
Stephan
I do certainly feel I get taxed MUCH more than what I get out of the system. Waaaay more.
We have a $600 Billion per year deficit as of 2016. You definitely aren't taxed more than the benefits that are doled out. Coincidentally our military budget last year was also right around $600 Billion so we could defund the military and make you whole if you want but it wouldn't lower your taxes a penny.
It's good to not need a safety net, but it's nice to have one when you do need it. It's the same logic many gun owners use, "better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it." I find the logic consistent and persuasive in both cases.
I was surprised to find that Canada pays less than the US overall.
You shouldn't be. Canada is rather more sanely managed than much of the US.
And for that Canada has a rudimentary universal health care system, and the US has what?
The US has a schizophrenic public/private system where nobody is in a position to control costs. We have universal health care but only for retired and some (but not all) poor people. We have great hospitals but nobody to keep costs in check. We refuse to insure millions of people thereby costing ourselves far more money when they inevitably show up in the emergency department of a hospital to get treated at far higher cost. We allow drug companies to charge whatever they want because... reasons. If you wanted to design a financially irresponsible health care system you'd have a hard time developing one more irresponsible than the one the US has.
Crumbling infrastructure and an overpriced military that funnels money into the military's suppliers and from there to the executives of those suppliers.
Our military isn't so much over priced as over funded. We have WAY more military than we could possibly justify or need. We spend more on our military than then next 8 largest military budgets combined, most of whom are allies. We have an annual federal deficit of $600 billion and guess how much we spent on our military last year? Yep, $600 billion. We basically borrow every penny we spend on the military, thereby screwing future generations because baby boomers are paranoid idiots.
Europe is heavily dependent on VAT (Value added tax). Hence this comparison is NOT valid !!
most of the money I pay in taxes goes to buying more military hardware and endless wars.
People keep saying this, despite the fact that it just isn't true. Most of your Federal tax dollars are spent on non-discretionary areas generally referred to as "entitlements" In 2016, Defense spending was $584 Billion. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other non-discretionary spending totalled $2.4 Trillion. And please, before someone goes off on a rant about "Social Security isn't an entitlement 'cause I've paid into it all my life and I've earned it", go look up the definition of entitlement.
Because the vast majority of people get healthcare through their employer
In other words they are being paid less than they would be otherwise if the employer did not have to buy health insurance, so the employees are still paying for this benefit through lower wages. In other countries companies can pay more because the government pays for health care. Thus it still has an impact on the person.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You get the biggest, best-equipped military in the world.
Which we borrow every penny of funding for. Our deficit last year was $600 billion and so was our defense department budget. We borrowed literally every penny we spent on our military because we have a bunch of paranoid xenophobic republicans who break out in hives when they hear the word taxes. Heaven forbid we actually pay for the services we want...
You've done that at the expense of healthcare, education, and social programs. It's a choice you make every election cycle.
Some of us anyway. Personally I'm baffled how much of our country votes against their own self interest and is all to happy to burden their children with huge amounts of debt.
A dollar is too much, if that dollar goes to a police state that spies, lies, and commits mass murder, like mine does.
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).
What you are missing is that the order in that list only applies to a person earning at the 50th percentile. Earn at the 25th or 75th percentile and the order of the list will change a lot. So you really need to know the ordering for the salary level you expect to earn.
Yeah its awful the way we don't let sick and retired people eat dog food and die.... see thats part of the actual helping that taxes do, but we waste a much higher amount of our tax dollars on military spending than other developed countries, for what we pay in taxes we could have much better roads, public transit, education benefits than we do now.
Instead we have a bunch of wars that do nothing for our citizens which we end up paying for for decades in terms of veterans support and we have crumbling infrastructure and schools that are struggling to keep up with those in other first world countries. Personally I think we could do to spend our tax dollars in a much better ways before we even get into how we might increase the tax revenue of the government to provide for things like universal healthcare.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
My CPA wife does the tax returns for a fortune 50 company for the US,UK and Canada. The corporate rate is the issue, not the individual rate. She works for a very tax conservative company, ie they pay hundreds of millions of dollars in tax every single year and don't try to do any crazy tax loop holes.
It's a group-buy. Theoretically cheaper to administer than each person building a road in front of their own house. A collective system of roads is a government "service." This is what government service is and should be.
Yeah its awful the way we don't let sick and retired people eat dog food and die
Who said that? Certainly not me. Regardless of how you, I, or anyone else feels about these things, the fact remains that we spend far more money on social safety nets than we do on defense.
There was a time when Americans were apologetically proud of not being socialist.
-Dave
If the public perceives that they are getting an appropriate value for their money, the absolute percent value of taxes is rather irrelevant. It's how the funds are utilized and the end results (or lack thereof) that feed the perception of too high. If they produce perceived value for the money, then much fewer people would think that the taxes are excessive.
And so... be thankful you don't live elsewhere.
You're obviously doing a lot of things that are highly taxable, or fall into high tax brackets (self-employment is one!). That's not going to be any different elsewhere for you, in that case.
I just think it's funny that places like the UK pay less tax (on average, this number is averaged out over every person in the country don't forget, you're an outlier) and get more back - for example free healthcare.
That's valid.
The perks of taxes are relevant too.
For example (an extreme case, but to be illustrative) if all economic activity was taxed at 75% in the US, but there was a universal income of 20k/individual that was untaxed, people spending 80k or less would effectively have negative taxes, but it would look like they were the most taxed people in the world.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The rich can leave, or at least move their wealth to somewhere the government can't reach.
Some do, most don't because they value a safe western society where property rights are respected and the second there is conflict or a threat the ones that did leave come running right back to the US. Personally I'd like to see stricter rules on this, you take your money and leave to avoid taxes and the government isn't responsible to repatriot you when the inevitable conflict brings them running back.
You want the benefits of living in a protected western economy you should have to pay the taxes to support that.
UK pays less tax.
Get free healthcare. Giving better life expectancy (and lower teenage pregnacy rates):
http://www.nationmaster.com/co...
Lower crime rates:
http://www.nationmaster.com/co...
Comparable educational levels in less time:
http://www.nationmaster.com/co...
Whatever you think of "other countries" that were "stupid enough to allow taxes to get so high" applies to the US, not to the UK.
You pay more. Get less back.
Is this title supposed to invalidate complaints over tax increases? It fails, horribly.
I think a lot of those values might be a bit suspect.
#1 Apparently Greece has high taxes, but do people pay them? Anyway with everything that has happened there in the last couple of years perhaps that is why they are higher, or perhaps reporting just isn't very good.
#2) This is basically saying that the US pays MORE income tax than Canada. As someone who pays Canadian taxes, I find that very hard to believe.
#3) It said parents in Canada pay on average 12% income tax (a 19% difference)? While not a parent, I do know some, and I find that very hard to believe also. Should that be the case I should probably start making some babies.
The liar in chief and his right wing buddies do not accept facts. They actually have Americans who also can not deal with facts at all. If these cheesy creeps feel as if they are over taxed then they are over taxed. That is their reality. If they were halfway alert they might notice that inflation is the greatest tax put upon us all.
I don't mind paying taxes if I get something back for them. What I don't like is paying taxes and the only thing I get back is another aircraft carrier. I don't mind paying taxes to support good schools but we spend more money on education without getting good value in return. I also resent paying more so a billion dollar corporation can go full deadbeat and skip paying taxes.
It's also an issue of representation. I pay the bills but my Congressman doesn't represent me, he represents the people putting up the money to get him elected.
This is a much bigger issue than just the number on the tax bill.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Problem with this study is "Too High" is an opinion and not a fact. You may feel the taxes are Too-High and I might feel the taxes are Too-Low. How it falls on some scale of other countries is not relevant.
You probably want to move to Hong Kong. Very low taxes, lots of people speak English. And you are very close to the tech hub in Shenzhen - just a subway ride away.
Cool story, let me try that. I'm going to opt out of my company health insurance and see if my salary goes up.....nope didn't work.
Plainly you have never quit a job at a company and come back to work as a contractor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...is why US taxes are so high when they include less than some other countries? In many of the countries the taxes pay for things like healthcare and other things that people in the US pay on top of the taxes to get the same basic service.
Taxation is Theft, if you like socialism so much, I'll pay for your plane ticket to N. Korea.
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.
for such a low UID, that had NOTHING to do with the comment you replied to. Getting senile in your old age gramps?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
And the majority of the revenue for those comes from taxes specifically laid to collect revenue for those.
And regardless of how you or anyone else feels about it, we spend far more money on the illusion of defense than we should.... by a vast amount. In 2015 the military ate up 54% of our discretionary spending. https://www.nationalpriorities...
And where did it all go? Well, we can't actually say because the DoD hasn't completed an audit since 1990. THAT is how fucked up they are at handling money. http://www.pogo.org/straus/iss...
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
The US tax code is an unholy pile of crap. Personal income tax rates are generally lower than in other developed countries. On the other hand, corporate tax rates are higher. But there are so many loopholes and exemptions that it all boils down to what sort of tax planning and advice you can afford. Individuals have a few write-offs available to them until they hit the AMT. Then, they pretty much pay the tax schedule rate. Corporations can whittle their taxes down to near zero. If you can't get your corporate rate down into the single digits, fire your CFO. This is why we (in the USA) are bent out of shape about our tax system. It's not just the percentages.
Most people want either less corruption or more of a chance to participate in it.
Have gnu, will travel.
More than a third my income comes out as taxes. It's pretty bad.
They want all of the rights and privileges of living in the USA, but none of the responsibility of being a citizen. Avoiding responsibility... it's the conservative way.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
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.
Access Denied at my work...lol
Right off the bat the article indicates it's only looking at Income Tax. I get taxed by State and Federal for Income Tax. I get taxed by the County for my home and vehicles. I get taxed by the State, County and City depending on where I shop, not to mention the "Convenience Tax" of shopping at the local mall. Smokers get taxed by every tax agency that can get their grubby little mitts into the tax code. Anyone putting gasoline in their car is paying multiple taxes on that. I get taxed for Internet, Cable TV, Cell Phone Service... My Federal & State Income tax rate combine for about 20% of my paycheck. Add in every other tax I pay hidden and otherwise and it's closer to 40%. Write an article that compares true tax rates and then see where the U.S. falls in that list.
Here in Colorado we have what's called TABOR, the TAx Payer's Bill Of Rights which says no new tax can be passed without being put on a ballot and approved by voters. The politician solution? There are no new taxes, only fees, which don't have to be put to a vote.
And the majority of the revenue for those comes from taxes specifically laid to collect revenue for those.
Only if your definition of "majority" is "significantly less than half". Social net outlays: $2.4 Trillion. Payroll tax revenue: $1.1 Trillion. And in case you missed it in the fine print on that Wiki page I liked to, the expenditures on the "Medicare" and "Other" slices of the social net pie are AFTER offsets from premiums and other "offsetting receipts" are applied, so it's even worse than these figures make it look.
If you want to complain about accountability, how about finding out where the $12 Trillion in Quantitative Easing since 2008 has gone?
Yeah its awful the way we don't let sick and retired people eat dog food and die.... see thats part of the actual helping that taxes do, but we waste a much higher amount of our tax dollars on military spending than other developed countries
Great, I'm sure you were all smiles and happiness then when President Trump called Germany on their under-funding of NATO, and pushing to have other countries cover their defense obligations (instead of assuming the US will always do it for them), right?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Tax the rich.
The rich can leave, or at least move their wealth to somewhere the government can't reach. Wealth/capital is fluid and goes where it's value is highest. Who will you tax when you run out of rich people? As Margaret Thatcher famously quipped;"Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money."
Give me Basic Income.
Why should others be obligated to simply *give* you that which they worked hard and sacrificed to obtain? What right do you have to essentially make people who create wealth slaves simply to support you? Go make your own damned money and stop trying to get the government to do your thieving from others for you!
Strat
And when he can't get a job to "work hard and sacrifice" due to outsourcing and automation, he will have have two choices:
1. He can starve to death.
2. He can get money to live on via an alternate method.
I am willing to bet that he will pick "2". Since someone else has the money, he will need to get it from them. Which way would you prefer?
1. Give it to him via a basic income paid for by taxes
2. Have him take it from them via criminal activity
Get enough guys like the above guy and you "work hard and sacrifice" guys will be in a real pickle.
PS: A large number of those who "worked hard and sacrificed" people who have the lion's share of the money did anything but to acquire it.
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
Most European countries rely heavily on sales taxes/ VAT. Such a tax does very little to distort people's incentives or discourage productive behavior. The result is that they have significant revenue (and, unless they're profligate, less deficit spending) with less deadweight loss to the economy.
In the US, we rely primarily on taxing productive behavior (payroll, savings, income, corporate taxes).
We also fill the tax code with enough loopholes and targeted cuts that it resembles a sieve. The targeted cuts are effectively government spending/subsidies; they may seem well intentioned in isolation but on the whole they're doing more harm than good. (Bush Sr.'s advisers had the motto "broaden the base, lower the rate," which is part of why some of the Clinton years ran a surplus. I imagine the loopholes were back in force by midway through Bush Jr's presidency.)
Even if we have lower taxes on the whole, in many cases our taxes are doing more harm to businesses and workers. We can change this.
Consumption taxes have seemed to be a third rail- an untouchable topic - in US politics, largely because by themselves they are regressive. But there are plenty of ways to implement an overall progressive tax system using them, like the "Bradford X tax."
We should also shift some of the burden of "productivity taxes" to Pigouvian taxes, which tax things that cause costs to society. A good example was the revenue-neutral carbon tax proposed by Republicans in Washington state (and shot down by Democrats because it didn't give them more money to advance their social agenda).
Again, it's not that there aren't solutions - solutions which reasonable people on both sides of the aisle should find acceptable. It's that we can't scrounge up the political will and get elected representatives to act reasonably.
Taken collectively, my largest expense is tax.
I expect this is the case for a lot of Americans, due to the combination:
- relatively low essential expenses (food and fuel)
- high incomes (compared to other countries)
- large population (lots of complainers!)
When people realize that a large slice of their gross income is an expenditure over which they have no direct control, yeah, they're going to complain about it, regardless of how much tax someone on the other side of the planet is paying.
Yours [dskoll's] was one of the "insightful" moderated comments, even one of the more insightful ones, but it seems for rather small values of insight. A few mentions of "progressive taxation", but none moderated up. Just my delusion that Slashdot used to be much deeper in days of yore? Also funnier, and not one "funny" mod on this humor-rich target.
There are various principles for personal taxation. I favor progressive taxation that increases the tax burden on people who can afford it, mostly because they are getting most of the benefits from the civilization that the taxes pay for, but also because poor people are human, too, and their suffering should be reduced when possible.
It is obvious that the current principles of personal taxation in America are working to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. My interpretation of Ryan's proposed "tax reforms" is that the so-called Republicans have realized they can't squeeze any more blood out of the poor people, so they are going to squeeze more out of the people who aren't poor. Yet. Unfortunately, this will NOT solve the fake problem of the super-rich people. There is NO amount of money that would "solve" such greed.
Corporate taxation should also be considered in the broader topic of taxation. Obviously the current American tax system supports corporate cancerism with many industries collapsing to one or two companies. Capitalism requires meaningful competition (per my sig), but cancer worship is NOT capitalism.
I would like to propose a new principle of corporate taxation to increase human freedom. Progressive corporate taxation based on market share. Once a company's market share gets too high and starts reducing the customers' freedom, then its tax rates start rising. Don't think of it as a penalty for success. Rather the winners are being rewarded by being encouraged to reproduce and COMPETE with more choices. Going farther, I think there should be special tax incentives when a giant company divides itself into directly competing companies.
Rather than protecting a monopolist's profits by fighting against innovation and dangerous changes, the company's would be motivated to keep right on competing and innovating. In cases where there really is a natural monopoly, the extra taxes should mostly be invested in (1) carefully regulating the monoplist and (2) researching (and even investing in) ways to break the monopoly.
Lots more details available upon polite request, as the old joke goes.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You Americans may average $53K in salary, less $13K in taxes, and take-home $40K, but what do those taxes cover? From my interviews, that same average American pays $10K in insurances, bringing the household income down to $30K, which ain't enough to do anything but live. Take $5K for the car, $5K for food, and a $20K mortgage, and what's left?
The taxes go somewhere. Counting them without counting their effect is completely meaningless.
Your waters are muddy, but since I'm not sure if it's intentional, I'll assume the best of intentions. You left out the cost of service on the national debt, which is something like 200 Billion this year (I think I'm close), and that comes out of the general fund. SocSec and Medicare do not come out of the general fund, and are (in essence, and occasionally adjusted) paid by separately-funded income streams. Your fixation on the word "entitlement" is interesting, because these are the social safety net programs that see that those people who cannot provide sufficiently for themselves (or at all) are not burdening the earning power of their families or costing us all more by addressing that poverty in other ways... crime, unpaid bills, etc.
If you want to see the sick, old and severely disabled also suffer the indignities of absolute, irrevocable suffering, abject poverty and starvation, then by all means fight these "entitlements", but you'll be fighting the working people by encouraging unhealthy living conditions, and less social and economic mobility as they have to shoulder those costs by themselves in an environment where wages have been stagnant for 30 years.
I'll grant you that there must absolutely be people who are on SocSec disability who can and should be working, and any number of crooked ways that medicaid and medicare money is mis-spent or scammed away, but we also have a lot of old people in the country and a lot of them spent their money on their kids and their homes and cars and college all along the way through their earning years, and it's that long-term contribution to the economy in general that "entitles" them to the reassurance that the safety net brings.
So, yeah, "entitlements" account for a lot of spending, but that spending comes into being because of our social contract and because of the economic investment that citizens have made, more than the actual value of the specific payroll deductions that feed or have fed those funding streams.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Just because our taxes aren't the highest doesn't mean they aren't too high.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
In the United Kingdom taxes go to cover National Health Service. In the United States health care is provided by paying premiums. The study should either 1) remove the portion of tax in the U.K. that covers NHS, or 2) increase the amount paid in taxes plus premiums to allow an apples to apples comparison.
Taxes are theft, even if you get something in return for them; and not paying for something that was thrust upon you without asking isn't theft.
The problem is, states have no idea how to fund themselves without taxes, and we have no idea how to keep states from spontaneously arising without another state there to fill the space. So if we're going to have a state one way or another, it's better to stick with one that at least nominally represents the interests of the people, instead of letting a bunch of warlord states spring up in its absence. You'll be stuck with someone stealing from you (and calling it "taxes") either way, but in one case you might get roads and schools and such out of the deal, while in the other case you definitely won't.
Until we figure out how to have stateless or at least taxless governance, there is no practical choice to have nobody stealing from you, it's only a question of who is going to steal from whom and what are they going to do with that money. Paying a trifle to the nicer thugs who mostly rob from those who can better afford it and do nice things for the community on the side is definitely worth it for the main service they provide of keeping the meaner thugs who would just crack you over the head and take everything from you at bay.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The article uses a fallacy. High taxes are an Absolute condition, not a comparative condition.
Just because some other countries have jumped onto this extreme taxation bandwagon does not mean taxes are suddenly low.
BASICALLY, Unreasonably high is anything above 10%.
If taxes are theft, rent is also theft as rent is little more than privatized taxation. As housing is necessity, you're given little choice but to sign a contract where a private country, called a "landlord", forces you to live by their rules and pay their taxes. Refuse to do either? "Men with guns" will come and forcibly remove you or put you in prison. Refuse to sign a contract? "Men with guns" will come and cite you and/or arrest you for vagrancy. Taxation is a fact of life. It's also the cost of civilization. Don't like it? Buy your own island and start your own country, provided the country of the island's jurisdiction allows you to do so.
The only reason your money is worth anything is because it is backed by the US government, which derives its power from the will of the people. We, the collective citizens of the United States as represented by our elected government, have allowed you temporary possession of that money as part of a system that facilitates the commerce that benefits us all. You are a beneficiary of that system and you are expected to make the necessary contributions to perpetuating that system. If you do not like the terms and conditions, then you are free to leave and build your own economic system. You are not a slave. There is no Iron Curtain. You are free to leave as you please. There are still large stretches of Antarctica that are unclaimed; let's see how much wealth you can build when you truly start from scratch.
Take a dollar bill out of your pocket. Does it say "Made by BlueStrat"? Does it say "Property of BlueStrat"? If not, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
I'm not fixated on the word "entitlement". I used it because its dictionary definition is, "the right to guaranteed benefits under a government program," and because it's a useful term to describe the bulk of the Federal government's non-discretionary spending. A lot of people seem to think it means "an unearned benefit", which is why they get all lathered up when someone refers to Social Security as an entitlement program, and why I added the "before someone goes off on a rant" comment.
For the record -- I am not opposed to social safety net programs, and I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything in my previous post to give the impression that I am, unless you think that pointing out that something is expensive means you don't like it. I agree that it's a social contract, but it will be out of money in another 17 years or so unless something dramatic is done to save it.
That's higher than I would have imagined possible. I don't have the numbers for sales tax, gasoline, and utilities, but even being ridiculously generous with those categories, I don't hit 24%. (Married with two kids, for reference.)
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
What makes the average tax burden in Europe so high is middle-class taxes: that's what pays for the European welfare state. So, when you hear the Warrens, Clintons, and Sanders out there saying that the US should become more like Europe, you need to understand that in order to pay for that, taxes on people making $50000 and up would have to go up by 10-15%; US top marginal tax rates are already comparable to European top marginal tax rates.
For example, an average wage earner in Germany pays 39.6% income tax, while he pays 25.8% in the US (the difference is even more pronounced because the average income earner in Germany earns substantially less than in the US, even in terms of $PPP).
The USA had NO taxes. But, roads were built, military was funded, schools were built. Get rid of income tax, which PUNISHES ACHIEVEMENT. Ever notice a lot of the so called super rich, don't take an income? It's because they are smart, knowing if they have a large income, they will be taxed on it. Get rid of the 16th amendment, replace it with a consumption tax. Prebate for the things like food/rent, so those at the low end won't be hurt. A fair/flat tax would also generate a lot more revenue, and this nation would become a safe haven for other nations to invest their money. If you don't buy crap, you won't be taxed. And, those big ticket items would mean those at the top end would pay a higher percentage. Also, with a consumption tax, illegal aliens would still be paying something for everything they purchase. Plus, the "built in" tax on all goods and services would be eliminated. That, or if some company tried to keep the higher prices of the built in tax, plus an average 22% flat tax, their items would be 22% higher, than their competitors. Income tax, is nothing more than control and power for government.
but we should not lockup pop users hell we can tax pop sales and make alot of bank.
oops pot and pop
Yes, and the highest private education spending in OECD
Yes, for the simple reason that healthcare spending has little to do with either life expectancy or teenage pregnancy rates. So why are you dragging it into this discussion?
Actually, the UK has about average taxes among OECD countries at around 35% of GDP; the US is on the low side at about 26%. Of course, given that US per capita GDP is about 35% higher than that of the UK, the US actually collects more in taxes per capita than the UK, and it spends even more because it runs a deficit.
I could give 2 shits what other countries tax rates are, it's my money that i worked my ass off for, not the government to waste. We literally fought a revolution over this shit so stop trying to downplay it.
Understandable, but sometimes looking at how other people do things can be instructive. Maybe even worth one or two shits.
Where I live the vast, vast, VAST majority of workers pay their taxes by PAYE. Vast.
That is, the employer pays the taxes for them and the worker's bank account is simply direct-credited $PAY-$TAX every pay period.
The worker never sees the taxable money nor has to think about it unless they have a change of employment status or some other mitigating factor.
The only other significant tax is sales tax, which is built into the price of every good and service with a few rare exceptions.
This annual circus of "doing your taxes" that we see Americans go through just makes us shake our heads.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
âThat premise isn't useful. â âA useful metric would be something like "tax dollar per what you get", e.g. Healthcare. I bet the USA is High (bad) on that metric.â Other countries may have higher taxes but they also get more for their buck.
Yes, American taxes are insanely high - compared to what they historically were ....
I guess it depends on what you count as "historically" - from 1932 through Regan's days in office the top tax rate was between 70 and 94%. Under Regan it dipped as low as 28%. The current top rate of 40% doesn't seem that crazy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Simplifying things would be something I would support - This was interesting about a California program available to simplify filing:
https://priceonomics.com/the-s...
The point is we don't get much for our tax dollars, at least at the federal level. No health care, no say in the election process /rant
I'd pay more federal taxes if I received tangible benefits for my contribution. What our federal taxes do go for is personal protection for the petrochemical industries overseas interests, travel benefits for national reps and senators.
My state/local taxes get me part of my health care benefits, pays for the roads in my area.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
You seem to be forgetting that the person posting that almost certainly knows squat about taxation, companies, or such things.
They are also certainly a salary earner who things THEY pay all the tax, and everyone else is cheating the system.
Deductions have been twisted by many many special cases by SOME companies and individuals, but the basic concept of deductions
is of course core to company tax, and without it you are taxing revenue, not profit, which immediately destroys a WHOLE range of types of
business (basically anything that makes a profit margin of less than 50%... which is a damn lot of the economy!).
Most salary earners dont have a clue about business or business taxation, unfortunately.
They should give it a go, and find out life is not all roses, especially for small businesses and sole proprietors.
This chart is thoroughly misleading, at least from my perspective. I live in the UK and my taxation is as follows:
Marginal Income Tax (includes National Insurance which is our Social Security) - 62%
Student Loan (which thankfully I have nearly paid off) - 10%
Sales tax - 20%
That means, assuming I spend 30% of my income on stuff I'm paying 78p in tax on every additional pound I earn.
That's well over twice the number suggested in the chart.
As a note, my US colleagues (who actually earn significantly more than me) pay less than half the effective tax rate that I do.
One important part missing is healthcare. In most (all?) other developed nations, one of the things you get in return for your taxes is health care. In the US, that's extra.
Once you earn around EUR 40,000 per year, you are in the highest tax bracket. Assume you earn that much. Now assume that your employer pays you a EUR 1,000 bonus for good performance. First, the employer needs to pay his share of social security (health, pension, unemployment) - around 35% of gross - so the cost of the bonus to the employer is actually EUR 1,350. Then you pay your share of social security (around 13% of gross), so your before income taxes is EUR 870. You then pay 50% income tax, which leaves you with EUR 435 initially, but actually city taxes are around 8% of the income tax paid, so you pay another EUR 35 for that. This means that your net income is EUR 400. You then go to the shop and buy a new TV for EUR 400. The shop pays 21% VAT, so they only get EUR 316. To sum up: in order for buy a TV worth EUR 316, your employer needs to pay EUR 1,350. So based on income tax, social security and VAT only (there are of course more types of taxes), 77% of the money paid by an employer goes to the state. Of course, the state provides valuable services, but I find the magnitude of this number shockingly high!
All that text, and you *still* didn't answer the question. What right do you have to make slaves of others in order to support you? What right do you have to other people's time and labor to support you as an individual?
Here's another question for you. What happens when too few people are working/generating wealth to be taxed in order to support the masses who decide to survive on UBI?
Look, I appreciate your compassion for those less well-off. I too have compassion for them. The thing is, you have to really think ahead and logically on things when your emotions scream at you to do *something* 'right now!'. This is particularly true when talking about major structural changes to the economy and finances of a 'super power' nation. If we screw up, a lot more than just those in the US will suffer.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
How does an illegal immigrant pay SS and Medicare/Medicaid taxes without a SS ID number?
The answer is they don't. All the employed illegals I know are not on the books and are paid in cash.
Let's re-evaluate a bit more. Since, health insurance is now required by law. Let's add that into taxes. Now, where does America stand?
The truth is, it's not just about taxes, it is about taxes vs benefits. Those other countries that exceed American taxes, they are socialist nations providing a multitude of benefits including free health care, free education, etc, etc, etc. America has very high taxes for what we actually receive from our government.
I am also curious, is Social Security included as part of U.S. taxes? Because it is a tax,
Because most of the expenditures of "protecting our interests" (e.g. sending aircraft carriers all over the world) are to benefit the interest of the rich elites and not the middle class.
You have to be kidding me? Am I supposed to feel grateful that I already pay more than half of my income in taxes???? Eff the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, damn socialists!
and the one I replied to had nothing to do with the comment above that (also mine).
The fact is that it doesn't matter how much money is spent on social security, it doesn't matter what the percentage is, if we cut our military spending to a level that was in line with the spending done by any other major country (hell, lets make it as much as the next 2 countries combined) we would save 300 billion a year. For that money we could have the kinds of services that other modern countries enjoy. Universal healthcare, free state universities... actual investment in infrastructure and transportation.
And every time I bring something like this up someone trots out this old shit about how much we spend on entitlements. Thats what we SHOULD be spending tax money on. Tax money should be used to provide services that people need in a society and what we really don't need is a larger military and more wars.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Yeah, I think its pretty much bullshit that countries use us as the world police... but then we kind of set our asses up to be that ever since we started jumping into proxy wars all over the fucking globe.
I would like to see us stop but hey, Trump was also more than willing to dump a shit ton of missiles into Syria so apparently he doesn't really have as much of a problem with us being in that role as he would like to claim. If you want countries to stop expecting you to fight wars for them the first thing you should do is stop blowing shit up on their behalf.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Find 35 other non-socialistic or communistic governments. Then we'll be able to get an accurate comparison. When the government owns and runs everything they collect for everything. There are many services USA pays for as private fees rather than taxes. If you make comparisons, make them accurate.
The usual cherry picked statistics to support class warfare. Having listened to this shit argument for 30 some odd years you'd think it would just dry up and blow away. If you took all the wealth of the rich it would fund the government for about a week, the problem we have is excessive spending not too low or too high taxes.
Murphy was an optimist
This is a totally irrelevant, and irresponsible, reporting!
As many of my fellow readers here have accurately pointed out, this is the proverbial comparing apples to oranges.
Other tax structures around the globe offer differing services, like healthcare and other social services.
Add in the fees for things others are getting and you will see how expensive life in the USA really is!
And, what about the military (NATO too) we tend to overspend on here in the USA; which many other countries do NOT spend, and rely on us for?
It is totally irresponsible for any reporter, or slashdot contributor, to allow such bullshit, incomplete stats to potentially mislead readership!
SHAME ON Y'ALL!!!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
FYI, Here is the actual quote from Romney. I suspect many have not seen it:
Romney told donors, "47 percent of voters would chose Obama "no matter what" because they are people "who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. These are people who pay no income tax."
What seems lost in the world as well as shashdot these days, is that politics is not a team sport. Ideas do matter. Facts do matter. Not what you infer. Not your emotions. Self government is a rare and special thing, but it does involve rational people making rational choices. Two rational people can disagree about the course of action when dealing with a fact. Irrational conversations result when people change facts or insert their bias as fact. This is exactly what the OP and others in this thread have done.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Yes they are. What other countries are taxed doesn't matter to us, only what we are taxed and what we get for it.
And don't go saying, that money is imaginary and the government owns all the money anyway.
Economics is based on the laws of thermodynamics, and that is not something that humans can change.
(No matter how many paper dollars, or equivilent, that they print!)
Just because the US isn't at the top of the list doesn't mean our taxes aren't high.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
The tax numbers given usually don't include the burden caused by borrowing (which at least in theory crowds voluntary-sector borrowing making interest rates higher, and in any event will be paid by somebody *) or the decrease in the value of the dollar caused by monetary inflation.
Add those two to explicit taxes and -- ta da! -- you get government spending.
Come out against that, and see what that gets you.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
You'll probably also die before you ever have a house fire. That mean your local fire department is a waste of money?