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The rich bear the brunt of the tax liability in all European countries.
That's not what regressive means. What throws European countries' tax systems into regressive classification is their 20-25% VAT taxes which disproportionately impacts lower- and middle-income earners.
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"...the basic facts of official OECD statistics:
Fact 1: The core countries of Europe (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain) collect only one third of their revenue from progressive income, profits, and property taxes, while the U.S. collects almost sixty percent.
Fact 2: Europe collects almost two thirds (64 percent) of its revenues from regressive payroll and sales taxes versus 44 percent for the U.S. (The U.S. figure includes state and local sales taxes. Our federal sales taxes are trivial unlike Europe’s).
Not Eastern Europe, but the socialist countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Etc. I feel like they are trying to turn us into Europe by taking away freedoms and pushing their liberal/socialist views on us.
Yep, that's pretty much what we want.
Although I'd advise you to look a little more closely at those supposed "freedoms". You do realize that here in the Land of the Free, police routinely round up, arrest, and assault protesters. We imprison MILLIONS for petty, victimless crimes. We have BY FAR the highest incarceration rate in the WORLD. "Land of the Free"
Not Eastern Europe, but the socialist countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Etc. I feel like they are trying to turn us into Europe by taking away freedoms and pushing their liberal/socialist views on us.
technically, there isn't full fledged socialist country in the mix. All have, for example, private ownership of business. .something socialist countries wouldn't allow.
Even the US has some "socialist" policies such as education system, medicare, medicade.
High income earners are still heavily taxed in those European countries however, even if the burden of taxes is spread.
The highest percentage of European tax revenue is collected via regressive taxes. That disproportionately burdens the lower- and middle-income earners. See my post, above.
The highest percentage of European tax revenue is collected via regressive taxes. That disproportionately burdens the lower- and middle-income earners. See my post, above.
Property taxes are highly problematic for the poor and middle class. A tax levied on people regardless of income with no way to avoid paying is not what can be considered progressive. European property taxes are generally much lower than in the US.
I do agree that sales taxes are regressive, but they are also efficient with less administration costs. Some countries have lower sales tax though, like Switzerland at 8% sales tax.
On the other hand, the payroll tax in European countries is far more progressive than in America as it has no cap on income subject to the payroll tax, unlike America's $118 000 cap. The American people want to see this cap lifted in order to expand social security to provide a better standard of living for the disabled, the elderly and the veterans, according to polls. Both conservatives and liberals agree on this.
At the end of the day, costs that are covered by taxes in Europe, people have to pay through the nose for in America like health care costs, child care, higher education (used to be basically free tuition in America after WW2) and retirement savings. The costs run in the tens of thousands per year for families, and many can be a single snake bite or some lengthy hospital stay from a $100 000 bill and bankruptcy. These worries do not people in Switzerland or Scandinavia have and that is a more humane form of capitalism IMO.
Why do you keep up with this nonsense? Tell you what, lets take their tax system where the poor pay more then here....but we also have to take their benefit system.
Property taxes are highly problematic for the poor and middle class. A tax levied on people regardless of income with no way to avoid paying is not what can be considered progressive. European property taxes are generally much lower than in the US.
I know you're really trying to avoid reality, but here's what the OECD states is the average revenue source of all OECD countries. 2/3 comes from the regressive taxes: Consumption, Property, and Social Insurance taxes:
Whereas in the U.S., those regressive taxes are only slightly more than half of the revenue:
Why do you keep up with this nonsense? Tell you what, lets take their tax system where the poor pay more then here....but we also have to take their benefit system.
Sigh.
I've never argued against that. The problem you have is that the poor and middle class in the U.S. absolutely will NOT take on the tax burdens their peers in European countries bear.
Socialists countries have constraints that prevent common people from starting and growing businesses that create all the immensely capital-intensive industries that make products that are so ubiquitous and for some reason you don't think anything about. They're top-down, not bottom up--they devalue the individual (one that commonly has the better idea) in favor of the collective. Here those individuals have access to finance, there they don't.
That's an interesting analysis - let's look at what those socialists at Forbes and the Heritage Foundation have to say:
Scandinavians didn't get free anything. They came over on boats with barely anything but the clothes on their backs, and worked for others. Nobody gave them free land.
Homestead Act, for chrissake. It was one of the driving forces for Scandinavian immigration. The US was expanding westwards and offered acreage at extremely low prices at first, then for nothing in return for the land being farmed for number of years. Sure, tradesmen followed the farmers, but the chance to own one's own plot was the engine that drove Scandinavian immigration. It's not even considered debatable.
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Where'd all this Amsterdam Avenue and Schuylkill and Tappan Zee around NYC come from? Do you know?
Yes, I read books. But you picked Ellis Island to illustaret whatever point you thought you were making - not a short-lived 17th-century Dutch colony that was taken over by the English 200+ years before Ellis Island opened its doors.
Last edited by Dane_in_LA; 07-28-2015 at 06:08 PM..
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