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mattmcdon... mattmcdon...
 

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M$1.00  Funded By Mahalo ? |  April 16, 2009 04:43 PM

How do taxes Americans pay compare to taxes paid in order Western countries? Are American taxes higher or lower?

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Interesting: hushnow

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dcanswerer dcanswerer
 
 April 16, 2009 05:04 PM
The U.S. has lower tax rates than a number of western, industrialized nations. Many of these other nations have socialized programs (such as universal health care, free elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education, etc) and they need a higher tax base to pay for it.

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a group of 30 industrialized countries that work to further free market and democratic principles worldwide. They gathered statistics regarding taxation compared with Gross Domestic Product. You can see a chart here, and note that the U.S. is very low down the scale of tax rate per GDP:

http://www.oecd.org/vgn/images/portal/cit_731/54/46/41489047chart%20A%20jem.jpg


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philipy philipy
 
April 16, 2009 05:57 PM
Because you only linked the JPEG and not the article, I'm not sure what exactly the data is referring to. Is it all taxes, only income taxes or what?

I'm wondering because while most of the data is what I'd expect some of it seems odd.

The basic conclusion that the US is one of the lowest is true however you look at it though.

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hushnow hushnow
 
April 18, 2009 12:23 AM
I'm assuming they took out things like Social Security and Medicare because in theory that is still our money- in reality the moment the Government touched it, it ceased being ours and therefor it is a tax.

I'm also assuming that they didn't count things like sales tax, property tax, etc in there. Thoughts anyone...?

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philipy philipy
 
April 20, 2009 05:39 PM
Different countries have very different tax systems. Some have high sales taxes that make up big fraction of the tax take. Others have taxes at various levels or not (federal, state, city etc). Then there's corporate taxation.

A graph that doesn't explain what it's a graph of is of limited use.

But the basic picture (US one of the lowest) would be true on most ways that you'd probably want to look.

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jeffhoard jeffhoard
 
April 20, 2009 07:27 PM
It is a good answer, but it certainly could have been better with a link to the chart title, I have no doubt that the chart is accurate, it would just help to see what the number and data represents

http://www.oecd.org/home/

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