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The @OECD released its revenue statistics for 2017 last month, and as always the the U.S. was near the bottom among wealthy nations in tax revenue as a share of GDP. So we're a low-tax nation! Which doesn't mean everybody's taxes are low here. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Here's the taxes/GDP ranking for 2017. The U.S. came in 30th out of 35 OECD countries.
Still, lots of taxpayers in the U.S. don't think they're getting a great deal. One reason is that, unlike in many other wealthy countries, taxes don't cover health care and higher ed.
Here's something I wrote in 2017 about the health-care/higher-ed issue bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Also, U.S. income taxes are actually above the OECD average as a share of GDP data.oecd.org/chart/5rrA
And the top marginal tax rate in the U.S. (or, to be more specific, in Detroit) was higher in 2017 than in Germany, the U.K. and Norway
The chief explanation for this combination of high(ish)-income taxes and low tax revenue is not that U.S. income tax rates are on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve, but that the U.S. doesn't have a national consumption tax data.oecd.org/chart/5rrE
Fans of low, flat income taxes like Hungary's (15%) and Estonia's (20%) should be aware that these countries have felt the need to levy very high consumption taxes to make ends meet data.oecd.org/chart/5rrF
Meanwhile, fans of super-generous welfare states like Denmark's and Finland should be aware that these countries have also felt the need to levy very high (and regressive) consumption taxes to make ends meet data.oecd.org/chart/5rrG
Consumption taxes. They're what pay the bills.™
If you find this thread interesting, you may want to read the excellent book that @therealtrreid wrote a couple of years about how the U.S. approach to taxation differs from that of other wealthy countries amazon.com/Fine-Mess-Glob…
And for the Georgists among you (cc @pyradius) here's property tax revenue as a % of GDP. U.S. property taxes are among the world's highest, but they're still a pretty small part of the overall tax burden. data.oecd.org/chart/5rrM
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