![How Low Are U.S. Taxes Compared to Other Countries?
[Image: Henry Blodget]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/95bff05f161b5921276a5ef70550a4b8/tumblr_mgmn2g2o331qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
How Low Are U.S. Taxes Compared to Other Countries?
[Image: Henry Blodget]
Exploring the American Idea since 1857. Run by Chris Heller and Alessandra Ram The Atlantic Twitter In Focus From the Archives
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January 14, 2013
October 19, 2012
![Bushonomics on Steroids: Romney’s Tax Plan Is Still Severely Impossible
Meet the new Romney tax plan, same as the old Romney tax plan. It’s a massive tax cut for the rich, a small tax cut for the middle class, and a tax hike for the poor. That adds up to mega-deficits. How mega? Well, the Tax Policy Center calculates Romney’s $25,000 cap would raise about $1.3 trillion over a decade — against almost $5 trillion in tax cuts over that period. And remember, that’s a $3.7 trillion hole relative to a world with the Bush tax cuts. It’s an almost $8 trillion dollar hole compared to a world with Bill Clinton-level taxes.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mc5g6nQ9tn1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
Bushonomics on Steroids: Romney’s Tax Plan Is Still Severely Impossible
Meet the new Romney tax plan, same as the old Romney tax plan. It’s a massive tax cut for the rich, a small tax cut for the middle class, and a tax hike for the poor. That adds up to mega-deficits. How mega? Well, the Tax Policy Center calculates Romney’s $25,000 cap would raise about $1.3 trillion over a decade — against almost $5 trillion in tax cuts over that period. And remember, that’s a $3.7 trillion hole relative to a world with the Bush tax cuts. It’s an almost $8 trillion dollar hole compared to a world with Bill Clinton-level taxes.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]
October 3, 2012
"I believe that the costs of building and maintaining a great country should be shared by all of us, beginning with the people who benefit the most from our society. I believe that people like me (and people who are far wealthier) should pay more in taxes."
September 25, 2012
![Mitt Romney Makes 26% of His Money Abroad and Pays 2.4% to Foreign Governments
[Image: Ritchie King]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_max2i4R1bi1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
Mitt Romney Makes 26% of His Money Abroad and Pays 2.4% to Foreign Governments
[Image: Ritchie King]
September 18, 2012
![The Most Misleading Part of ‘The 47%’: Total U.S. Taxes Are Barely Progressive
Mitt Romney is worried that half of make the wealth and half of us take the wealth. So is his running mate Paul Ryan. If this sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, that’s because it is. The world we live in is far different from the world Ayn Rand imagined. Just take a look at total taxes.
The chart above, from the Citizens for Tax Justice, looks at how much households earn and how much they pay in all taxes. In other words, it compares what percent of overall income they make and what percent of overall taxes the government takes from them. It’s not exactly a picture of moochers waging war on heroic entrepreneurs.
Read more. [Image: Citizens for Tax Justice]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_makd9mBvdD1qcokc4o1_1280.png)
The Most Misleading Part of ‘The 47%’: Total U.S. Taxes Are Barely Progressive
Mitt Romney is worried that half of make the wealth and half of us take the wealth. So is his running mate Paul Ryan. If this sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, that’s because it is. The world we live in is far different from the world Ayn Rand imagined. Just take a look at total taxes.
The chart above, from the Citizens for Tax Justice, looks at how much households earn and how much they pay in all taxes. In other words, it compares what percent of overall income they make and what percent of overall taxes the government takes from them. It’s not exactly a picture of moochers waging war on heroic entrepreneurs.
Read more. [Image: Citizens for Tax Justice]
September 18, 2012
![Was Mitt Romney a Member of the 47 Percent?
Mitt Romney isn’t a big fan of the 47 percent of people who pay no federal income tax. But there’s a small problem. Romney himself might have been a member of the 47 percent as recently as 2009. […]
As Joshua Green of Businesweek has speculated, it’s possible that Romney suffered big enough losses during the 2008 market crash that he zeroed out his 2009 federal income tax liability. Of course, Romney has claimed that he never paid less than a 13 percent effective federal rate the last decade … but he refuses to release any tax returns from before 2010. That’s not to say that Romney is necessarily lying, just that we have no way to check. Consider that six of the top 400 tax filers — a group making nearly ten times as much as Romney — paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2009. It’s certainly plausible that Romney was a member of the 47 percent in 2009.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mak6jzTL8n1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
Was Mitt Romney a Member of the 47 Percent?
Mitt Romney isn’t a big fan of the 47 percent of people who pay no federal income tax. But there’s a small problem. Romney himself might have been a member of the 47 percent as recently as 2009. […]
As Joshua Green of Businesweek has speculated, it’s possible that Romney suffered big enough losses during the 2008 market crash that he zeroed out his 2009 federal income tax liability. Of course, Romney has claimed that he never paid less than a 13 percent effective federal rate the last decade … but he refuses to release any tax returns from before 2010. That’s not to say that Romney is necessarily lying, just that we have no way to check. Consider that six of the top 400 tax filers — a group making nearly ten times as much as Romney — paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2009. It’s certainly plausible that Romney was a member of the 47 percent in 2009.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]
September 18, 2012
![7,000 Millionaires Paid No Income Taxes in 2011
[Image: Derek Thompson]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_majwj2qkap1qcokc4o1_500.png)
September 18, 2012
"You can paint a similar history of the welfare state, which was first secured by assuring racist white Democrats that the pariah of black America would be cut out of it. When such machinations became untenable, the strategy became to claim the welfare state mainly benefited blacks. And as that has become untenable, the strategy has become to target the welfare state itself, with no obvious mention of color. At each interval the ostensible pariah grows, until one in two Americans are members of the pariah class."
September 18, 2012
![Mitt Romney says Americans who don’t pay income tax will never vote for him. But, eight of the top 10 states with the highest number of nonpayers tend to vote Republican.
[Image: Tax Foundation]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maj245jZwB1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
Mitt Romney says Americans who don’t pay income tax will never vote for him. But, eight of the top 10 states with the highest number of nonpayers tend to vote Republican.
[Image: Tax Foundation]
August 31, 2012
![Mitt Romney’s Tax Plan Only Works If Income Inequality Gets Worse
Romney wants to cut rates and cut loopholes but keep everybody’s taxes the same. That’s the implication of a revenue neutral plan where the rich pay the same share and the middle class pay the same amount. It’s just a complicated way of saying nobody’s tax bills change. But we’re back to the same old problem: the rich pay a lower effective federal tax rate under Romney’s plan, so they won’t pay the same share. Unless they have more money than we’ve assumed.
But there is one way that Romney’s plan works mathematically: Income inequality explodes. If enough growth goes to the top 5% of earners, they will get rich enough to fill the revenue hole.
Read more. [Image: Matthew O’Brien]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9mkgsSvwA1qcokc4o1_1280.png)
Mitt Romney’s Tax Plan Only Works If Income Inequality Gets Worse
Romney wants to cut rates and cut loopholes but keep everybody’s taxes the same. That’s the implication of a revenue neutral plan where the rich pay the same share and the middle class pay the same amount. It’s just a complicated way of saying nobody’s tax bills change. But we’re back to the same old problem: the rich pay a lower effective federal tax rate under Romney’s plan, so they won’t pay the same share. Unless they have more money than we’ve assumed.
But there is one way that Romney’s plan works mathematically: Income inequality explodes. If enough growth goes to the top 5% of earners, they will get rich enough to fill the revenue hole.
Read more. [Image: Matthew O’Brien]
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