My main experience with taxes in Europe is in Poland, and that second hand from my mother-in-law, mostly. In the US, a typical tax payer will pay federal incom

My main experience with taxes in Europe is in Poland, and that second hand from my mother-in-law, mostly. In the US, a typical tax payer will pay federal income tax, federal medicare and social security payroll taxes, state income tax (which varies a lot by state, but can be much more regressive than the federal income tax), and municipal or county property taxes (usually real-estate, but may also include things like vehicles), and a state+municipal sales tax on purchases. Not to mention various other taxes specific to things like gasoline, alcohol, tobacco, etc, and various usage fees for toll roads, etc. I'm sure things are similar in Europe in many ways, and different in others, but it can be a little hard to figure out how much I pay in tax total in a year, and I'm hardly an unusual case. All of this to really underline your point that just talking about US income tax is too incomplete a picture for the purpose of comparison.