Myth busting chart on taxes.

[whyverne]

I found this to be interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
You can sort all the countries in the world to see who pays the most taxes by clicking on the little arrows.

Let's see; if I throw out the outliers and the oil rich nations, what do we have.

The US is pretty much below average in how much taxes it collects as a percentage. (Gee, I heard Andy Rooney say we have some of the highest taxes in the world on "60 Minutes".)

The most "civilized" countries are mostly all on the higher tax collecting side. (If you had to live somewhere else in the world, any reasonable choice would include higher taxes.)

You might get the idea from this chart that if you want to live in a nice place then you have to pay more for that privilege. That sounds so capitalistic! How do the Tea baggers stand it?

Maybe they don't like civilization.

[patrice]

1. Nice! list! But it's not "by tax revenue as ...."; it's by name WITH "tax revenue as ..."

I know that's not your error.

:hi:

[Ozymanithrax]

2. Notice that only the United States is listed with "all levels"

Any idea why that is limited to the U.S.?

[GoneOffShore]

Dupe - deleted

[GoneOffShore]

3. Thanks for the link - Listening to Andy Rooney is like ...

listening to Grandpa Simpson. Except Grandpa Simpson makes more sense and is funnier.

Rooney is such a shill.

[JHB]

4. Of just the OECD countries we're 27th highest out of 30.

It's be interesting to see a breakout of those numbers for various budget categories.

For instance, what would be the rankings minus defense budgets?

[Edweird]

5. Yeah, but those other countries actually get stuff for those taxes - mainly health care.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Shut up!

Sorry. I was channeling Fox News.

[JoeyT]

7. It makes a big difference that in a lot of the countries that are lower than us in tax

percentages mostly the average person doesn't have anything to tax anyway.
They're to the point that a tax would be useless. The only people with any money at all are the 1% at the top.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of conservatives, we're well on our way there.

It'd be a little more accurate to say "If I throw out the oil rich nations and/or hellholes"