Here’s Donald Trump, speaking at a presidential debate in October of last year (emphasis mine):
“We’re already [the] highest-tax nation in the world. Just about. They can maybe find—every once in a while they’ll say, they’ll fact-check me, ‘Well, there’s a nation that you never heard of where it’s slightly higher.’ We are just about, of the industrialized nations, we’re the highest taxpayers in the world.”
Wrong again, Mr. Trump. Newly published data confirms that, conservative rhetoric notwithstanding, Americans pay very little in taxes compared to residents of other developed countries. That includes US corporations, which pay less than the average for industrialized nations.
The data compares the total tax rate paid in OECD member countries, which are primarily developed nations, with each country’s total gross domestic product. It includes state and local taxes. As this chart shows, the total US tax rate is near the bottom:
Source: OECD
Only Korea, Chile, and Mexico pay less.
While the blend of taxes is somewhat different in most of these countries, the overall conclusion is inescapable: we live in one of the lowest-taxed industrialized nations in the world. It’s time for Trump and his friends to step up to the plate and pay their fair share.
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