This has actually been studied by many economists. The only way the large amount of tax revenue needed to fund social programs for all while harming the economy
the least is
to flatten every other kind of tax (income tax, etc.) and implement a national VAT tax:
Quote:
"The United States has by far the most progressive income, payroll, wealth and property taxes of any developed country. Scandinavian social democracies like Denmark, Sweden and Norway have quite regressive direct taxes, as do the Netherlands and Switzerland.
...The disparity is even starker when you bring sales taxes into the mix, as VATs are an extremely important source of revenue for most European countries as well as Australia and Canada
...This isn't an accident. UC Davis's Peter Lindert has argued in his book "Growing Public" that European social democracies were only able to develop the programs they did because they used efficient consumption taxes that didn't lower growth as much as progressive income taxes, particularly those on capital income. European countries needed tax systems that could raise a lot of money without hurting growth, and only regressive consumption taxes fit the bill.
...[Researchers] Prasad and Deng found that the progressivity of countries' tax codes is negatively correlated with the amount of redistribution they do. In English: The less progressive the [tax] code, the more progressive the system."
|
Other countries don't have a "47%" - Washington Post
Pay close attention to what that scatter plot chart tells us... Note that the highest levels of government benefits and services are provided by countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium) in which taxes are
flat (everyone pays the same tax rate) or
regressive (shown as the negative values along the bottom axis, meaning a greater tax burden is placed on those with lower incomes). And note where the USA falls on the graph. The USA has the most progressive tax system and therefore is least able to fund social program "wants" like single-payer Medicare for All health care, because the tax base is too narrow and overly dependent on the top.
(Scatter Plot info, for those who need more explanation of what Scatter Plots tell us:
https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/scatter-xy-plots.html)
"...the progressivity of countries' tax codes is negatively correlated with the amount of redistribution they do.'
That's very succinct.
Many want... want... want... but FAIL to recognize and accept the need to actually PAY for what they want.
For those interested in learning more, the link to the research peer-reviewed professional journal article which includes a plethora of citations:
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10.../576828521.pdf