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This talking point of once-sky-high marginal tax rates gets a lot of airplay, but it's very misleading. Almost no one paid those rates. Tax receipts as percenta

This talking point of once-sky-high marginal tax rates gets a lot of airplay, but it's very misleading. Almost no one paid those rates. Tax receipts as percentage of GDP have been remarkably stable over time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law#/media/File:U.S._Federal_Tax_Receipts_as_a_Percentage_of_GDP_1945–2015.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law#/media/File:U.S... Total tax revenue in the US is 27% of GDP. In Sweden, it's 46%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...

kbenson 10y ago
> Tax receipts as percentage of GDP have been remarkably stable over time That may be true, but since the sources you listed contradict each other, I'm left confused. I can find supporting evidence of the graph[1], but not of the wikipedia entry. The world bank apparently thinks they are all wrong[2]. Then there's a report that Norway is actually doing it with much less taxes than Denmark and Sweden[3], but that might be likely due to oil revenue. I'm left to conlcude that without a lot of research to look into the specifics, there's quite a few ways to measure this, and I'm not sure which are most relevant to the discussion at hand. 1: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/source-revenue-share-gdp http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/source-revenue-sha... 2: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS 3: http://www.thelocal.no/20151204/norway-leading-the-field-for-tax-revenue http://www.thelocal.no/20151204/norway-leading-the-field-for...