The U.S. Is a Low-Tax Nation Unless You Earn a Lot
High, progressive income taxes and low consumption taxes add up to a system that generates lots of complaints and not so much revenue.
Not really, but ...
Photographer: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
The overall tax burden in the U.S. is, by wealthy-nation standards, not very high. The U.S. did move up a spot in the 2017 rankings published last month by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, passing South Korea. But it’s still sixth from the bottom among the 35 OECD member countries in national, state and local tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product — and the tax cuts that began to take effect last January will likely knock it down a notch or two.
This is a useful corrective to the claim, made a lot by President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2016, that the U.S. is “the highest-taxed nation in the world.” But, as I’ve learned when writing about these tax rankings in the past, it’s not the end of the story.