Income Taxes Headed in the Wrong Direction

The chart above is based on global personal income tax data (highest marginal rate) just released in KPMG’ study “Individual Income Tax and Social Security Rate Survey 2009.” The trend globally over the last six years is towards reductions in the highest personal income tax rates, which have fallen from 31.2% in 2003 (average of 86 countries) to 28.9% in 2009. The highest marginal tax rate in the U.S. has been 35% since 2003.

As Chris Edwards at the Cato Institute points out:

The Obama administration plans to let the U.S. rate jump to 39.6% in 2011, which would be almost 11 points higher than the international average. Worse still, the United States has state income taxes with rates up to 10% that are piled on top of the federal tax. Some of the nations in the survey (e.g. Canada) also have subnational income taxes, but many, or most, of them do not.

HT: Cato Institute

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About Mark J. Perry 262 Articles

Affiliation: University of Michigan

Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan.

He holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University in Washington, D.C. and an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Since 1997, Professor Perry has been a member of the Board of Scholars for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a nonpartisan research and public policy institute in Michigan.

Visit: Carpe Diem

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