Sorry America, Your Taxes Aren't High (bloomberg.com) 903
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.
Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Funny)
Smart people like Trump never pay them.
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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.
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Dividends are taxed as income, always.
You must not own any dividend-paying stocks. If you did, you would know that qualified dividends are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary dividends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_tax#United_States [wikipedia.org]
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The US income tax system is highly progressive. Currently the bottom 45% of US households pay no federal income tax [marketwatch.com]. 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.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Informative)
Moreover, they were derided because they were deliberately trying to mislead voters through implication, without technically lying. It's similar to when Apple had ads that stated "Macs are immune to Windows malware", knowing that most consumers will hear that and think "Macs are immune to malware", despite that not being what Apple's literal statement said (because "Windows malware" only affects Windows, just like "Android malware" would only affect Android devices, not Windows or iOS or OS X, etc).
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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50th percentile people certainly pay taxes. They pay sales tax, state taxes, gas taxes, property tax, social security tax, car licensing tax, etc. They also pay a small amount of federal income tax, articles put it at 3-5% of their income. Usually the largest tax in this list is property tax. But that makes sense - you get direct benefits of police, fire, roads, schools, etc for that tax. And you have local control over property tax, if it is too high go to a town meeting and complain.
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I easily get 33% taxes taken between state and Federal....
I've not looked exactly this year, but that's likely a good ballpark estimate.
Reminds, me I got an email from my CPA the other day, I need to look at it and sign forms, etc.....see how much I owe.
As for how much the "rich" pay. Hey, I can't blame them for taking every deduction, legal method of saving tax payments. I do the same as much as I possibly, legally can.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Interesting)
You can simplify the tax code without pulling out this "fair tax" / flat tax bullshit.
Progressive income taxes work, and they can exist simply, in a manner that doesn't require lawyers and accountants - but guess who writes the tax law?
Get rid of deductions, stop treating different types of income differently, stop issuing financial aid through tax credits and subsidies (most of which just end up in the pocket of H&R block anyway)... Simple and still progressive to insure the people who can afford to pay more do pay more.
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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 citize
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Luxury tax and estate tax use to address the issue of the rich buying less and paying less taxes.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:4, Funny)
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.
It's still pretty unreasonable. Scandinavians have lutfisk and surstromming and rakfisk and other unspeakable weapons, which scare me a lot more than some floating airstrip does, and are much better value for money. So it's not how much money you have, it's how you spend it.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:4, Informative)
Your reasoning falls down at the "write your congress critters" part.
You should realize that your congress critters work for rich people and corporations and are bribed by them to keep their taxes low and put special loopholes in the law so they don't have to pay taxes. Congress doesn't work for voters.
If you're just a regular working stiff and not a corporation or rich person, you are paying too much tax.
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But I don't consider myself racist, and I'm not quite sure the major racist things Trump has said or promotes.
That you don't consider it racist when Trump questions a judge's qualifications and ability based on that judge's ancestry says a lot about you.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:5, Informative)
It's the fact that the rich pay less (in terms of % income) than the middle class.
That's because earned income (wages) get taxed at a higher rate than investment income (rental properties, capital gains and dividends). Romney paid less in taxes because the majority of his income was investment. Obama paid more in taxes because the majority of his income was earned. Don't like the taxes you're paying? Convert earned income into investment income.
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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For me of 15 years ago, it would have been impractical. If 'instant gratifcation' means 'able to eat at least one meal a day', I was guilty. Sometimes there just isn't fat to trim.
If I bitched about needing all my money that I earn *today* then I would be a totally impatient and self-absorbed guy. Then again if I can afford to engage in shenanigans to have money later than now, then I can also afford to have a bit more tax burden to pay for the sort of programs I needed 15 years ago to get by, and that
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Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
Re:Taxes are for dummies (Score:4, Informative)
Dividends get taxed as income.
Ordinary dividends are taxed as income. Qualified dividends are taxed at different rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_tax#United_States [wikipedia.org]
All my dividend income is qualified and therefore I paid zero taxes, as my actual tax rate is under 15%.
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Taxation 101: the relative burden. Most people find it fairer or believe it to be logical that those who make more can accept a larger share of the burden. If you make a little, you're taxed lightly; make a little more, you're taxed moderately; those who make the most are taxed at the highest percentages. This is known as a progressive tax system.
There are some who will argue for a flat tax, where everyone pays the same percentage across the board. This also has a certain logic, and many proponents.
Very few
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Ok, really?
Seriously?
Let me ask, do you not seriously take EVERY legal deduction you can on your taxes? Do you go out of your way to pay more than you actually owe?!?!
You almost seem to be trying to put some morality spin on paying taxes.
It is not a moral obligation.
It is only a necessary evil....that should not be overly burdensome.
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So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.....
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You need to spend more time on conservative websites.
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The argument that we should be happy because our taxes are lower than other countries is a bit like telling Mary that she should be happy that her husband only beats her twice a week, because Jane's husband beats her three times a week.
And what do we get for those taxes? Soaring education & medical costs with reduced quality, dilapidated bridges & roads, wars against countries that pose no threat to our national security, agricorps that get subsidies to not grow food, etc.
Now I'm just waiting for
Re:So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:5, Insightful)
By the time you take all that stuff into account the US is likely to be *way* further down the list. Property tax isn't high in the US (typically around 1.5% of the value of the property, which is similar to, or lower than council tax rates in the UK). Sales tax is typically extremely low (typically less than 6%), compared to the UK's 20% VAT. Taxes on fuel are typically extremely low 18.4/gal, compared to the UK's £2.19/gal (273/gal).
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And... slashdot ate my cent symbols. Assume that 18.4 and 273 are followed by cent signs)
Re:So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they did not take into account state taxes, they also skipped city, township and county taxes. Sales tax can come from state, city and county, I think.
Gas taxis 18.4/gallon at the federal level, so it should be already in there, right? I am not sure. Anyway, state and city can add their own gas taxes.
Does the UK's VAT replace the income tax there or do both exist?
A more thorough report would be nice regardless of whether the U.S. is higher or lower on the chart.
A report for value obtained by those taxes would also be nice. However, that can be highly subjective.
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Then again remember the second half of the equation. We are required to by health insurance and nothing is covered. We have to pay out of pocket on top of that to
Re:So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sales tax is often above 6%, even here in Utah. There are state, county and city components to it. The federal gas tax is the low part. State more than doubles that. We pay an additional 29 cents a gallon on that. Given the cost of gas that is an effective 25%ish tax rate. Social security tax is very significant amount, varying by income. Then again remember the second half of the equation. We are required to by health insurance and nothing is covered. We have to pay out of pocket on top of that to use the health insurance. We have to save for our own retirement as we do not get government pensions back out of our money, and in fact can't even really start collecting social security (our own money) until later and later years. Now approaching the average age that a male dies. We basically get very little for our tax money, and have to make up that difference ourselves, costing us more. This means that the real effective tax rate is higher, and actual cost of living can be quite high do to the lack of services provided for your taxes. The corporations get cheap tax rates, the extremely rich pay very little, and the middle class carries a significant portion of the tax burden. Look at the effective rate the middle class pays and what they get.
I live in a European country. I pay 25% sales tax, a 40% income tax and a monthly charge for my pension plan but that's not a tax to my mind, it's an investment. Additionally I pay tons of all kinds of fees every time I want to use a public service, my car is subject to fuel taxes and road taxes but I expect this 'taxing by a thousand tiny cuts' phenomenon also exists in the states so let's stick with the big taxes. If I was an American I'd be paying 25% income tax and 0-10% sales tax depending on where I lived. On the face of it I'd say the American has it significantly better than I do especially because the average pay in my industry is about 30% higher in the US. However, I do get universal healthcare and free university education for my 40% income tax and 25% sales tax and the crime rate is ridiculously low here compared to the US so it's not all bad.
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If you think about it, you'll realize how stupid this whole thing is. Regardless of the for
Re:So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:4, Insightful)
You already opened the door to many of the reasons with behavior modifying taxes. Many annoying details in the tax codes are there because of this.
Another big problem is locality. There are countless tiny library districts, transit districts, school districts, etc. that all have wildly varying needs and draw on different groups of people. If you attempt to simplify things and then flow cash back to these districts things can get ugly fast.
Maybe try to attend a few local town hall meetings and see how complicated it gets when some bright fucker tries to nix a bag fee or something.
Re:So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you think about it, you'll realize how stupid this whole thing is. Regardless of the form of taxation, the net result is the same - money diverted from the productivity generator (employee, company) to the government. So why do we need so many taxes?
This makes a base assumption that services provided by the government are not productivity generators.
According to you:
*Roads are not productivity generators
* People who are not sick don't generate productivity
* Educated people don't generate productivity
* People who don't live in fear of crime don't generate productivity ...
Re:So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:4, Interesting)
free university education for my 40% income tax and 25% sales tax
TBH that's probably not worth it. Hard to be sure because obviously the 40% + 25% goes to other things as well. You've probably spent a lot extra in taxes than you would have if you'd just paid for college.
Probably true if those were the only two perks but I notice you did not include universal healthcare in your quote which means I don't pay a dime even for extremely expensive treatments that often ruin US households. You also cut out the low crime rate which I consider to be a major plus of life in this country. There are also many other things like free daycare for everybody, no toll roads, a well maintained infrastructure, 100% internet coverage at speeds that most Americans can only dream of, ... the list goes on. I can see how some people might be interested in a minimal state with low taxes where most of the things that are public services or utilities in my country are privatised and where you are shit out of luck if you are too poor to afford health insurance but I still do not feel like I'm being shortchanged or robbed and I'm not so annoyed by the universal health insurance also covering very poor people that I'd abolish the system. Funnily enough I know a number of people who were pretty annoyed with things like mandatory health insurance and mandatory pensions that they fled the 'socialism' over here and moved to the US so they could skip that stuff and have a bigger disposable income. Interestingly a number of them came back here years later to make use of the 'socialism' over here that so disgusted them to get expensive operations and cancer treatments because they had not bothered to save for such eventualities. That ended when the parliament passed a law stating you have to have lived in country for over a year before you are eligible for treatment through national universal health insurance system.
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I said LA, not CA....wrong state.
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Exactly my thoughts. Ignoring a lot of different tax avenues that governments utilize is one deficiency in the report. The other is the value provided. Ignoring whether the country should or should not provide services (i.e., healthcare), what the country does provide as part of taxation(s) should also be accounted. Well, I guess that could go into a separate report.
Also, what about evaluating the individual states of the United States? The European Union countries were rated individually while the Uni
Re:So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:5, Insightful)
I will assert that the taxes to the -government- are not high in the US. However, there are "taxes", that one has fork over to businesses or else:
1: Health insurance.
2: Toll roads/commuting. There is no government interest in public transportation, so one has to have a vehicle and drive. This means forking over cash for car insurance, vehicle upkeep, parking, traffic costs, etc.
3: Pollution.
4: Potential losses due to sickness/injury. Those costs going to inscos don't mean that they might bother paying a hospital bill bursting with zeros. It is pretty common for someone to lose their entire fortune with one serious illness.
5: Unemployment. Not everyone has a 2 year "fuck you" fund. Benefits can be quite limited, if one can get them at all, since ex-employers fight unemployment claims tooth-and-nail as a matter of routine.
6: Training and education. When I was in college, my German classmate had his tuition paid for by the state. Same with my Russian, Chinese, French, English, and Indian classmates. I was the only one there forking out fees out of my pocket or getting student loans for it.
I would be more than happy to pay more in taxes, provided it gave single-payer health coverage, a usable public transportation system, some type of income if jobless for the short and long term, and education so I can keep relevant when job skills shift. In fact, if those things were covered by taxes, I'd be far better off financially, and I'm sure most people would be as well.
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It ain't what you got, it's what you do with it that counts.
I was surprised to find that Canada pays less than the US overall.
And for that Canada has a rudimentary universal health care system, and the US has what?
Crumbling infrastructure and an overpriced military that funnels money into the military's suppliers and from there to the executives of those suppliers.
It's no wonder the US citizenry are so angry.
Peace
Canada vs US (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Sit down and shut up (Score:3, Interesting)
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we are grossly overtaxed... for what we get in return
for what we pay, with all taxes combined (income, property, sales, registration fees for cars and what not, etc).. we *should* have single payer non-discriminatory universal health care, free 4 year public university, and a lot of other things.
Re:So you exclude half the taxes and what you get? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was filling my return in yesterday. I was owing the feds $200 until I put in my mortgage interest deduction. Suddenly Uncle Sam owed me $2000. Property taxes are negligible given the system that's skewed in favor of home owners who take a massive benefit from the general population's tax contributions. It's a huge driver of income inequality.
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Capital gains in the US (15%) is typically substantially lower than in Europe (where it's usually around the 25% mark).
So is sales tax (typically around 6% depending on state), compared to somewhere around 20% VAT (depending on exact country) in Europe.
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Relativity (Score:2, Funny)
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.
It's relative (Score:2, Interesting)
The nice kind of rape (Score:3, Insightful)
"Yes, you're getting forcibly fucked in the ass, but the dick's on the small side, so it's okay."
Re:The nice kind of rape (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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"and imprisoning non-violent drug offenders "civilization.""
Posting non-anonymously because I need to point out your naivety.
I take issue with this. My daughter (10 years old at the time) was kidnapped and brutally raped by someone who was considered a "low risk" drug offender.
The problem with your thinking is that the vast majority "non-violent" drug offenders can't work. They need to feed their habit so they need money. They'll lie, rob, steal friends, family or strangers to get what they need. By the
Re:The nice kind of rape (Score:4, Insightful)
The majority of recreational drug users are not, in fact, addicts.
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I wouldn't mind paying for civilization. I wish we had some.
Yes they are too (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Health Care (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Because the vast majority of people get healthcare through their employer or provided by the government and don't have to explicitly purchase it?
http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-population/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D [kff.org]
Re:Health Care (Score:4, Insightful)
What does it matter if it's your employer paying it directly, or paying the money to you and you paying it? The route the money takes shouldn't make a difference.
I live in the Netherlands. The lowest tax bracket here is 36%, which seems surprisingly close to the 37% we ended up with in the table. The highest bracket is 52%, and it kicks in at around 67000 euro (i.e. it's not just for the extremely rich).
But then there is another sum which must be payed by the employer. This is income-dependent, but it's not counted as income tax. Why? This money is directly related to my income, so what could it be, other than an income tax?
"Ah, but this second sum is paid by the employer, so it isn't income tax!" Well, I've got news for you: the first sum is also directly paid by my employer to the government. I never get to see or touch that money. I just hear about it in reports, stating that I sponsored the government for an appallingly large figure.
So yeah, all in all I'm going to go with "we pay a lot more than 37%", and that makes me suspect the other figures in the report as well.
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Because the vast majority of people get healthcare through their employer or provided by the government and don't have to explicitly purchase it?
I don't see how that's relevant, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. I'm included in the vast majority and have employer provided health coverage. It cost me $500/month, and my company is chipping in at least that much per month. My employer certainly doesn't require me to participate, but if I don't I pay the "no-insurance-tax". How is that not the same thing as a tax? Just because I'm able to purchase it through my employer instead of an exchange doesn't diminish the requirement of having health
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Yeah, well... (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, well... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Let's have an apples to aplpes comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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You are right, but thats not really the way most americans think of their taxes. Raising taxes is a hard line for a ton of americans and it doesn't matter what we get in return for it, so we will never have universal healthcare if the idea of raising taxes is so vilified. Even if the tax increase was far less than what we pay now for insurance (which it likely would)
Because they cherry pick the numbers... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Payment vs Service (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Americans may pay less taxes, but we also get far fewer services.
We get plenty of services. We have more aircraft carriers at our disposal than the rest of the world combined. A fleet of nuclear weapons waiting to be launched. Probably more tanks and aircraft than any two other nations. We have a wealth of services we pay for.
its not so much about taxes but how used! (Score:2)
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/ [3seas.org] 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 f
Deception - just one kind of tax. (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [washingtonpost.com], 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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The problem isn't that just one tax - the payroll/income tax being high.
TFA doesn't just cover cover federal income tax. It tries to quantify every tax that is based on an individual's income. Therefore social security, medicare, and state income tax are counted.
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.
Keep in mind, you are supposed to get your social security and medicare payments back when you are retired.
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My sister used to work for a downstream petroleum company, she told me that a the taxes on a gallon of gas - more than ten years ago when she worked there - was about 70% of the at the pump cost.
If this went 100% to roads I wouldn't be as annoyed, but we can tell by the conditions of our roadways this absolutely is not the case.
Fucked survey, is fucked. (Score:5, Interesting)
"...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...
Not relative (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
US government is dysfunctional (Score:2)
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 giv
Not yet... (Score:2)
Wait, this is a surprise? (Score:2)
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.
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I never expected the U.S. would on top, but ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
Sorry, don't buy this argument (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
More New York communist crap (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed (Score:3, Insightful)
I may be forced in to bankruptcy by medical bills but at least I'm FREE!
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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.
Re:The question IS... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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Old lizards who vote already have single payer healthcare, and they won't vote to share their Medicare with young lizards.
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Get a fucking job, and quit trying to be a sponge off society.
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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 m
Re:I demand More Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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 sacrif
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UK pays less tax.
Get free healthcare. Giving better life expectancy (and lower teenage pregnacy rates):
http://www.nationmaster.com/co... [nationmaster.com]
Lower crime rates:
http://www.nationmaster.com/co... [nationmaster.com]
Comparable educational levels in less time:
http://www.nationmaster.com/co... [nationmaster.com]
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.