10 Ways America Has Become A Low-Tax Country [CHARTS]

[grahamhgreen]

"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."

MORE: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/low_tax.html




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The simple fact is - WE DON'T REALLY HAVE A SPENDING PROBLEM, WE HAVE A REVENUE PROBLEM (except for the spending on endless wars, corporate welfare, and tax cuts for the rich, and the like).

And that problem is we've stopped taxing the people and corporations who are hoarding all the wealth.

[OHdem10]

1. We have a REVENUE problem.

[Odin2005]

2. K&R

[dkf]

3. Its the exemptions!

Get rid of them all and half the shenanigans will disappear.

[jmowreader]

4. It's not the exemptions. Exemptions are good.

It is SUPPOSED to work like this:

We set a tax rate that's higher than anyone really should be paying. Then we create a bunch of loopholes and exemptions to engineer socially-positive behavior, and in the case of corporations that involves hiring people and investing in their companies so they make more and better-costing products, thereby benefitting both the taxpaying corporation and the rest of the nation. And in the process, the corporation's tax burden falls to something more reasonable.

The problem with exemptions is if you cut taxes to a "reasonable level" before the exemptions are applied, and you then keep all the exemptions, corporations' tax burden falls to an untenable low.

Here's the ideal plan: Raise the base rate on corporations to somewhere around 70 percent, return the exemptions to what we had before Reagan was inaugurated, and restore the Alternative Minimum Tax to what it was pre-Reagan. That way you've got a do-it-yourself tax cut kit, and a tax floor so you don't wind up paying General Electric $170 million for the privilege of their existence.

[dkf]

5. By that standard GE is doing everything right.

And we should be applauding any entity that pays no taxes.

[jmowreader]

6. No, that was what the AMT was originally intended to prevent

There HAS to be a floor to taxes.

The very first step we MUST take to get back on the road to real recovery is to repeal the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

[grahamhgreen]

9. Agreed and well said!

Although there are a number if exemptions (like oil subsidies), that should be immediately done away with.

[Scuba]

7. Off to the Greatest Page

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Very informative - thanks

This shoots down a lot of RW talking points.

[indepat]

10. Yet the pub's mantra will continue: it's not a revenue problem, it's a spending problem.

:patriot: