Trump’s Tax Cuts Push U.S. Burden Lower in World. “Report says U.S. total tax rate lowest among grouping of major economies except Ireland, Chile and Mexico.”
Driven by the federal tax cut that Congress and Mr. Trump enacted at the end of 2017, U.S. taxes at all levels of government fell to 24.3% of gross domestic product in 2018, down from 26.8% a year earlier and 25.9% in 2016.
That 2.5 percentage-point drop was only the fourth time since 1995 that any country’s tax burden has declined by at least that much in one year outside of the financial crisis, according to OECD, an intergovernmental economic organization with 36 member countries including the U.S.
The steepness of the decline stemmed partly from an increase in 2017, when a one-time tax from the 2017 law was counted as revenue that year.
Measured as a share of the U.S. economy, taxes are now 10 percentage points below the 2018 OECD average of 34.3%. Among 34 countries with preliminary 2018 data, the U.S. tax burden is lower than everywhere except Chile, Ireland and Mexico. The tax cut drove U.S. taxes below Turkey’s, and taxes in France and Denmark are now nearly twice what they are in the U.S.
But there’s still a long way to go, when we’re getting beaten by the likes of Mexico, Chile, and Ireland. We can do this, America!
h/t SG