Board 8 > Lasa, how do you feel about the US having the most progressive income tax?

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23856.html

Surely this outrages you. Our tax policy is to the left of every major industrialized nation in the world.

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thats uh

not true

at all

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Yes, this infuriates me.

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Remember this article the next time you try and attempt to claim that American democrats would be considered "right-wing" in Europe. We are incredibly close, if not already there, to being significantly to the left of most European countries. Europe is waking up and starting to get it. We are not.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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Remember this article the next time you try and attempt to claim that American democrats would be considered "right-wing" in Europe.

They still are a right winged party.

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From: SmartMuffin | #004
Remember this article the next time you try and attempt to claim that American democrats would be considered "right-wing" in Europe. We are incredibly close, if not already there, to being significantly to the left of most European countries. Europe is waking up and starting to get it. We are not.

XFD oh my god he outdoes himself every day

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Which is why the majority Europeans/Canadians/Aussies/etc. consider American politics too right-wing.

Granted, a lot of that is social stuff like "lolol US health care what a joke" and "wow your education system sucks" and "you guys do WHAT to people just for possession of marijuana" and "so while other countries are increasing gay rights, your government has worked on legislation that would make them harder to achieve". But even economically, well, a lot of these require evil things like taxation to afford!

Go look at the stats on how Kerry/Bush '04 would have gone if voted on in other countries! Go look at how the words "Tea Party" are synonomous with a joke in non-American political circles, the names Pain and Bachmann held up as symbols of ridicule. Then come back and defend your fantasy land about how the US is to the left of Europe.

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Also tax foundation is not a viable source

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Remember this article the next time you try and attempt to claim that American democrats would be considered "right-wing" in Europe

They are right-wing to European (or at least Dutch) people. This doesn't mean the US doesn't have politicians we consider to be left-wing (given that, say, Ralph Nader exists), it just means we define politicians differently than Americans do. We wouldn't call Obama a leftist. But yeah, according to our political spectrum we currently have two right-wing parties and one extremist right-wing party, Wilders' party, in power. Dutch and European politics are awful right now.

Given that you just call anything left of center Communist, I don't know why you're so concerned about these semantic manners!

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From: NeoElfboy | #007
Go look at how the words "Tea Party" are synonomous with a joke in non-American political circles

They are synonymous with a joke in American circles, too.

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Then come back and defend your fantasy land about how the US is to the left of Europe.

Look at Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. Look at Marine Le Pen in France. I don't know enough about American politics to make a comparison like this, but we're far from a leftist continent anymore.

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Given that you just call anything left of center Communist, I don't know why you're so concerned about these semantic manners!

</topic>

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Go look at the stats on how Kerry/Bush '04 would have gone if voted on in other countries! Go look at how the words "Tea Party" are synonomous with a joke in non-American political circles, the names Pain and Bachmann held up as symbols of ridicule. Then come back and defend your fantasy land about how the US is to the left of Europe.

All this proves is that Europeans are astoundingly arrogant as to what American policies actually are. You're right that the perception both in Europe AND America is that we're far to the right of them. I am here to tell you that the reality is remarkably different. The piece I linked to is one piece of proof. Notice how nobody in this topic has attempted to dispute it, only smear Republicans. Classy!

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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yes, how ridiculous that nobody here has done studies on the tax policies of various countries.

even if this is true, there is a LOT more to the political left than income tax policy.

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even if this is true, there is a LOT more to the political left than income tax policy.

True, but I mean, come on, taxes are "kind of a big deal"

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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Well the article states its limitations of the study which discredits it from holding any water.

Besides, more money = more taxes and the richest in the US have a lot more money compare to the richest of the rest of the world.

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Well the article states its limitations of the study which discredits it from holding any water.

Um, no it doesn't. The article clearly states that it is studying "how progressive" the taxes are, not the total tax burden. If you're looking for an article that discusses the total tax burden, then you are correct that this one would be a poor choice.

Besides, more money = more taxes and the richest in the US have a lot more money compare to the richest of the rest of the world.

Uh, this makes it clear you either didn't read the article or have an *incredibly* poor grasp of basic mathematical concepts. We're talking about percentages here, not totals.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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Uh, this makes it clear you either didn't read the article or have an *incredibly* poor grasp of basic mathematical concepts. We're talking about percentages here, not totals.

It's not a flat percentage across all levels on income. People with higher absolute income pay a higher percentage of tax. If a few billionaires suddenly popped into existence in the US, the average percentage of income going to taxes would increase.

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People with higher absolute income pay a higher percentage of tax. If a few billionaires suddenly popped into existence in the US, the average percentage of income going to taxes would increase.

That isn't what this study is looking at either. It's not asking "how much income is going to taxes" but rather "how much of the total tax burden falls on the wealthy." If a few more billionaires popped into existence overnight, it would only make the difference more pronounced. Or do nothing at all. I'm not quite sure and I don't feel like figuring it out before responding =)

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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If a few more billionaires popped into existence overnight, it would only make the difference more pronounced.

In that they are carrying more of the burden right?

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What? High-bracket income tax in America is around 35%. In Europe it's around 45-55% I think. And the lowest bracket is usually 0% and it's like 5 or 10% in America? It's possible the rich are carrying a larger burden, but the actual policy is not.

Also, not including VAT wut.

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if the link is true, the rich are paying so much in taxes because they own almost all of the wealth.

And they still dont even pay as much in taxes as they own wealth

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That's some very interesting data there. The chart says the US top 10% does make more of the national total than most first world countries, but the share of income taxes they pay is even higher. 45% of taxes and only 34% of income for the top decile in the US, compared to the first world average of 32% of taxes and 28% of income.

That contradicts other data I've seen for income though, which puts the top 10% close to 50% of all income in the US. Indeed, Tax Foundation puts it at 46% in another article: http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

I guess the difference is the term "market income." I'm not sure what exactly that means.

In either case, something this is missing is that the top 10% is not the group to look at. The top 1% alone constitutes the rich, the next 9% are solidly part of the upper middle class. When people say that our tax system is not progressive, it's generally a criticism of how it protects the top 1%. It is plenty progressive between the middle class and poor.

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Phase posted...
What? High-bracket income tax in America is around 35%. In Europe it's around 45-55% I think. And the lowest bracket is usually 0% and it's like 5 or 10% in America? It's possible the rich are carrying a larger burden, but the actual policy is not.

Also, not including VAT wut.

1. Looking purely at tax brackets make no sense. First, those are measures of marginal tax rates and not total tax rates.

2. Those are rates prior to any deductions. The tax rate changes dramatically (and is 0% for a large percentage of the population) after deductions are taken into account.

3. Even then the rates are closer to withholding rather than the effectual tax rate as many people receive taxes collected back - specifically those who have taxes withheld after deductions but make a low enough amount to receive the money back.

4. There isn't a VAT in the world that is more progressive than a direct income-tax with progressive rates. Thus, including the VAT of a country would actually make the U.S. tax code look even MORE progressive.

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