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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.....
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
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.
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.
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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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.
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.