Wednesday, February 15, 2012

U.S. Has Lowest Taxes in the World - and Corporations Still Whining

The only responsible answer to repugs demanding more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy is to raise tax rates to the rational levels enjoyed by virtually every other nation on the plant.

Down with Tyranny:

There's a reason why American corporations, despite the lies propagated by the GOP and their media outlets, are the most undertaxed corporations in the industrialized world. And that reason is the very nature of the political elites in this country-- the wealthy... and not just Willard M. Romney.

Some members of Congress are threatening to allow the U.S. to default on its debt obligations-- and send financial markets into a tailspin-- unless the President agrees to large, sudden cuts in the budget deficit without any increase in tax revenue. But the most recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD),the Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau reveal that the U.S. is already one of the least taxed countries in the developed world. Only two OECD countries have lower taxes as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) than the United States.

Overall, U.S. Taxes Are Third-Lowest Among OECD Nations

* In 2009, total federal, state and local taxes in the United States were 22.6 percent of our gross domestic product, ranking 26th among the 28 OECD countries for which data are available. Only Chile (18.2 percent) and Mexico (17.5 percent) had lower taxes.

* In 2009, total taxes in the 25 OECD nations with higher taxes than ours ranged from 24.6 percent of GDP in Turkey to 48.2 percent in Denmark.

* In most cases, the difference in tax levels between the U.S. and OECD countries is not even close. Of the 25 OECD nations with taxes higher than ours, 22 of them have taxes that are at least 25 percent higher, and 15 have taxes at least 50 percent higher.

Many more details here.

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