Comments on: We’re #1!

By: Shoebox

Shoebox — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:19:41 +0000

Scott, it’s based on actual taxes paid. Tax “rates” without the actual effect would be meaningless.

No, it doesn’t include any “usage taxes” i.e. sales or VAT, just individual income or income like i.e. Soc security taxes. OECD had a separate study looking at all taxes as a % of GDP. That study (if I remember correctly) showed he US as 4th amongst the OECD memebers in highest % of GDP..that included all taxes.

By: scott

scott — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:54:28 +0000

As it should be. Still I wonder if it’s the official tax rate or the actual rate of taxation after incentives, loopholes, breaks, deductions, etc.

By: steveegg

steveegg — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:35:20 +0000

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the original source of that chart, is a bit evasive on just what they include. However, judging by a publicly-available chart from their report, "Revenue Statistics 1965-2007", that shows taxation in the US at about 27% of GDP, I would have to say that they include at least some of the state taxes.

By: scott

scott — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:21:26 +0000

Something about this doesn’t seem right. How are these tax rates being figured? You say it includes Social Security. Does it include all payroll taxes? Does it include state taxes? Sales taxes? Fees?

I suspect the real problem here, though, is that these are tax rates, not what people are actually paying. I happen to know, for instance, that while we have a pretty high corporate tax rate, most American corporations pay no federal income tax–and 90% of them pay 5% or less.