View from the Center and Left Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

From: TimF	10/31/2008 12:07:53 PM
	Read Replies (1) of 541518

News To Obama: The OECD Says The United States Has The Most Progressive Tax System by Scott A. Hodge Barack Obama's admission that his policies would "spread the wealth around" has ignited a nationwide discussion of how progressive the tax system should be and how it should be used to redistribute income among Americans. Obama has been very successful in bolstering the conventional wisdom that the U.S. tax system does not place a significant enough burden on wealthier households and places too much of a burden on the "middle class." But a new study on inequality by researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris reveals that when it comes to household taxes (income taxes and employee social security contributions) the U.S. "has the most progressive tax system and collects the largest share of taxes from the richest 10% of the population." As Column 1 in the table below shows, the U.S. tax system is far more progressive—meaning pro-poor—than similar systems in countries most Americans identify with high taxes, such as France and Sweden. Even after accounting for the fact that the top 10 percent of households in the U.S. have one of the highest shares of market income among OECD nations, our tax system is second only to Ireland in terms of its progressivity for households. The table also shows that the U.S. collects more household tax revenue from the top 10 percent of households than any other country and extracts the most from that income group relative to their share of the nation's income. Of course, these measures do not include the litany of other taxes households pay in each country, such as Value Added Taxes, corporate income taxes and excise taxes, but they do give a good indication that our system places a heavier tax burden on high-income households than other industrialized countries... taxfoundation.org The data behind the points is at the link, but I'll take two points and rank the top 3 OECD countries by those standards. (In all cases the higher the number the more the tax structure burdens the rich relative to the poor by that specific measure) Share of taxes of richest decile 1 - US 45.1 2 - Italy 42.2 3 - Ireland 39.1 OECD average 31.6 Ratio of shares for richest decile (the ratio between the share of taxes for the richest 10% and the share of income from the richest 10%) 1 - US 1.35 2 - Australia 1.29 3 - Netherlands 1.28 OECD average 1.11 Ratio of Concentration coefficient for household taxes with Gini coefficient of market income 1 - Ireland 1.37 2 - US 1.28 3 - UK and Australia 1.16 OECD average 0.96 taxfoundation.org Ht/ Brumar Message 25127547

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next