Our Citizens and Corporations Pay Much Less Than They Once Did and Much Less Than in Most Other Countries
The United States is a low-tax country. That’s true for individuals and for corporations, and it’s true whether you compare us to other countries or the America of the past. No matter how you slice it the conclusion is the same. Conservatives like to claim that our budget deficits are purely a “spending problem.” Said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “We don’t have this problem because we tax too little. We have it because we spent too much.”
It’s a popular talking point, but it simply isn’t true. Deficits do not stem from spending levels alone. They are the product of a mismatch between spending and revenue. And when revenue is as low as ours is, you end up with big deficits.
Here are 10 charts demonstrating the simple, clear truth that federal taxes in the United States are very low.
Also, this Huff Po excerpt:
"Among the 30 nations included in studies by the Organization For Economic Co-Operation and Development, the United States ranks among the countries with the lowest effective tax rates. At an average of 26.9 percent of America's gross domestic product from 2004 to 2008, the effective federal tax rate is significantly lower than in Denmark, for example, whose average effective tax rate was the highest of the countries studied, at 49.3 percent of its GDP. Similarly, the United States taxes corporations at lower rates than other countries. American corporations enjoy a rate of 13.4 percent of their profits. Compare that to Australia, whose corporations cough up 30.5 percent of what they make.
...American taxes have decreased significantly over the last half-century. In 1945, for example, the highest possible tax rate was 94 percent of income. Today, the highest rate is only 35 percent. Federal tax revenue today accounts for only 14.8 percent of America's gross domestic product. In 2009, the most recent year with data available, the average ratio of tax revenue to GDP of OECD nations was 33.7 percent."
"Recently, President Obama met with a group of House Republicans to discuss the federal budget and the national debt. During the course of that meeting, the president noted, correctly, that taxes today are even lower than they were under President Ronald Reagan. This fact was met with “a lot of ‘eye-rolling’” from the Republicans. They didn’t believe him.
This anecdote suggests that perhaps the reason conservatives think we don’t have a revenue problem is because they don’t know the facts. Taxes today are lower than they were under President Reagan. They’re lower today than they’ve been in 60 years. And they’re lower than they are in most developed countries.
We do have a debt problem coming down the road. That debt problem is the result of an aging population, rising health care costs, and, yes, revenue levels that are too low."
American Progress