bubba61y --
The bottom-line answer to your question is that U.S. income taxes
rates are not the lowest among developed countries. By a relevant
measurement, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, among
other countries, impose lower income tax burdens. I direct you below
to some authoritative data that demonstrate that fact.
"Income tax rates" can be compared in many ways, but most of those
comparisons aren’t very meaningful. For example, a country that has
the highest "marginal" rate (that is, the rate on a sliding scale that
is only applicable to the dollars earned above a certain amount) would
not necessarily be the country that imposes the greatest ovcrall
income tax burden on its citizens.
In order to provide you with the most useful data, collected by a
neutral organization, I have focused on the periodic reports issued by
the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Its
membership is comprised of thirty countries with the most developed
economies in the world. Its list of members is here:
OECD: Member Countries
http://www.oecd.org/oecd/pages/home/displaygeneral/0,3380,EN-countrylist-0-nodirectorate-no-no-159-0,00.html
The OECD publishes information biennially in tabular and chart form
that includes comparisons of average income tax rates of its member
countries based on certain carefully thought out assumptions. The
data is sold as part of a larger report, but relevant excerpts are
available online.
Information from the 1999 report is most conveniently available
online. Here is an article from the OECD Observer, which reproduces
the relevant table from the report covering 1998-1999. Unfortunately,
I can’t reproduce this graphical material in the body of this answer,
but just click on the chart at this link to see a larger, more
legible, version:
OECD Observer: Tax Burdens
http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/210/Tax_burdens.html
This chart plots a standard OECD calculation for its member countries
of average percentage of gross wages paid in income taxes, plus social
security contributions, minus cash benefits, for two "family"
configurations -- single, and married with two children.
The chart is arranged in descending order of tax burden on single
taxpayers, and the U.S. falls right about in the middle. The U.S.
appears to be well below the middle of the OECD member countries in
the tax burden on the married/two children household.
Examples of countries falling below the U.S. in both categories on
this chart are Japan, Portugal, Korea, Switzerland and Spain.
Similar information for 2002 has just been published by the OECD, and
the relevant table and chart can be found (somewhat less conveniently)
on page 9 (Chart 3) of the following French/English PDF document:
OECD: Les Impots Sur Les Salaires (page 9)
http://www.oecd.org/pdf/M00039000/M00039061.pdf
According to this chart, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Korea
and others continue to have a lower average tax burden that the U.S.
in both taxpayer categories.
(If you cannot open PDF files, you can download Adobe Reader at no
cost, here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html )
Additional Sites:
Here is a Forbes.com chart that is based on the 1998-99 OECD report:
Forbes.com: Benefits Index
http://www.forbes.com/legacy/global/2001/0205/054tab3_table.shtml
Here is the OECD's home page, from which you can link to comprehensive
information about the organization:
OECD.org
http://www.oecd.org/EN/home/0,,EN-home-0-nodirectorate-no-no-no-0,FF.html
Search Strategy:
I used various Google increasingly focused Google searches, including:
average income tax burden countries
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=average+income+tax+burden+countries
oecd
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=oecd
oecd "taxing wages 2001-2002"
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=oecd+%22taxing+wages+2001%2D2002%22
Again, the key to a useful answer here is the use of comparisons that
are fair and informative because they use meaningful criteria and
definitions. I think that the OECD reports do that and that this
information should meet your expectations. If any of the above is
unclear, please ask for clarification before rating this answer.
markj-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
markj-ga
on
22 Jun 2003 14:57 PDT
bubba61y --
As noted in my answer, the OECD charts rank the member countries in
descending order of their tax burden on single taxpayers--from the
highest taxed to the lowest taxed. Here for your immediate reference
is the descending-order list of countries from the PDF-formatted chart
for 2002 that is linked in my answer:
Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, Hungary,
Norway, Netherlands, Austria, Italy, France, Canada, U.S., Czech
Republic, Australia, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Iceland, Switzerland,
New Zealand, Slovak Republic, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Japan,
Korea, Mexico.
markj-ga
|
,
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