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| Economy |
| News To Obama: The OECD Says the United States Has the Most Progressive Tax System |
| 2010-04-14 |
| My apologies if this is a repost. Article is from October 2008 but given the increase in taxes, especially on the so-called "wealthy", I think it's safe to assume the situation has only worsened. 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. |
| Posted by:eltoroverde |
| #2 Two factors... First, Social Security is not only regressive, if it's taken into account, it would affect the overall "progressiveness" of the system. Second, I understand that the Bush tax cuts had a strongly net progressive effect. Then again that is if you ignore that businesses don't pay taxes, they just collect them and pass them on. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-04-14 22:24 |
| #1 Like the good progressive he is, Obama is trying to make the tax system even MORE progressive. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2010-04-14 18:17 |