Our Income Tax kicks in at £12,500; so, around $17,000. Up to then, the Tax Rate is zero. However, you might be paying £1,200 in National Insurance; which is why sensible people were up in arms when the Tories raised National Insurance to give some money to Health Care and Social Work, rather than hiking Income Tax. The increased NI with hit the lowest paid. 
F’ing Tories.
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Yeah, here our Tories raised the NI contributions as a response to the crash and Long Recession. Still up of course. Then they talked about broadening the tax base, which I assumed meant making transnational corporations pay, but turned out to mean they were horrified that the poors paid no income tax at all.
Fucking Tories (FFFG).
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It’s less loopholes and more deliberate policy.
Even if they don’t actively avoid tax through tax shelters and what have, the rich and large companies pay a much, much lower effective rate.
You have to pay income tax on fucking unemployment funds.
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But in the US, in addition to the Federal “Income Tax”, there is also a Social Security deduction (6.2% from you, + 6.2% from your employer (12.4% total), or 12.4% if you are self employed, plus mediacare (1.45% + 1.45% = 2.9%)
if you count the money your employer pays directly to the Fed, instead of including it as part of your income, you end up around 30% of your pay going to Federal
Each state has it’s own tax + unemployment insurance + various things, In my state, it’s around 5-6% income tax. Plus, there’s a 6.5% sales tax on [almost] everything. (some states go up to 10% income tax + 8-9% sales tax)
So, for me, that adds up to around 45% of my pay evaporating. And that’s before things like medical insurance, which would add up to around another 10-15% (with high deductibles and co-pays which make most people hesitate to even use it)
And all that is without all the social safety-net things that most other countries have, but which we totally lack (or have small versions of that are difficult for people to access and which offer very little help to the people who use them)
So, effectively, we end up paying much much more than most other countries, and get almost nothing in return. I’d gladly trade my 15% medical insurance (that is expensive if I try to actually use it, or which will refuse to cover most medial bills) for 2-3% in taxes for a health-care system that will actually enable me to use it without declaring bankruptcy.
Note, that multi-millionaires, and billionaires typically pay little to no income tax here, do to various tax loopholes they arranged to have carved out in the tax code for the super rich (eg, Bezos, richest person in the world, paid < 1% tax)
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I was under the impression that “loopholes” as a phrase covered intentional tax policy. Does it not? Could you give me the precise phrase to use instead for future reference?
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Not.
More letters.
I used to work for central government and was paid so poorly that I qualified for tax credit to top up my salary to the minimum level 
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All I can say is, for the love of God don’t do it! It may be too late for us, but for you, there is still time. Do not do this God-forsaken thing!!
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They keep following the playbook.
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The 24% I quoted is mean “total tax burden” which tends to include SS, Unemployment, Medicaid as well as state and local income tax. I believe it typically excludes property tax, which is the other big category that tends to skate in these numbers.
The 14% is the mean Federal income tax rate. The point of mentioning it is that it’s what people point at to claim taxes are low here. They take just that one portion of our taxes and compare it to the total tax in European countries (sometimes including VAT and property Tax as well). Which is dishonest because like you said we pay more taxes than that.
For us. And as withholding (which how we handle returns is it’s own stupid). When I’ve calculated my total tax burden including those social safety net taxes and state in the past, when filing my tax returns. It usually sat in the low to high 30’s. Though for a bit there, before Trump killed unreimbursed business expenses I got it down to the mid 20’s. Though I do not own property, and that would probably tick it up a lot these days.
One salient point is that state and local taxes (mostly income, but also property) are deductible from Federal taxes. To basically mitigate being double taxed. Although Trump sorta ratfucked that too by capping it at $10k. That sorta mostly hit home owners though.
Salient point about those means is that something like 60% of Americans don’t pay Federal income tax at all, because they make too little money. Masny of those people are living at or below the poverty line.
On top of that the very wealthy tend to pay a vastly lower effective rate federally, and have a much much lower total tax burden. Thanks to shit like capital gains, specialized deductions etc. So as these numbers are means and averages. They cover the spread from all those people who frankly can’t afford taxes to those who are so rich they don’t pay taxes.
It’s not a number meant to be your specific total tax paid. The total taxes on Europeans are higher as well if you roll in VAT, which tends to be much higher than US sales taxes. Though on more restricted categories and handled differently. And property taxes, which again tends to be higher than is common in the US. And assorted special taxes like taxes on car ownership (which the US tends to handle as a registration fee).
All together it comes out as sort of a wash for most people between the US and Europe. Depending on when and where you’re looking the US can be a little bit lower. But on weight the US takes in far less tax revenue proportionally than most other countries. And the reason for that is the higher income brackets do not pay much tax at all, and we basically do not tax big business or banks at all.
loophole would tend to refer to an exploitable gap in the law, or end round of rules.
I guess it would just be “tax policy”. Most of the way the wealthy and business skate on tax is intentional, either specific allowed deductions, lower tax rates on certain types of income or categories of business. It’s not that they are avoiding tax that they owe (though they do that too), it’s that they owe less tax.
The US only has a progressive tax system on paper. The listed income tax rates are lower for lower incomes. But the rest of our income tax system is designed to invert that.
Business taxes are a different thing. But it’s kinda got the same thing going on. We start from a baseline of very low taxes (Federally) and then it’s all built to minimize the actual payment as you move up the scale.
That is sort of a default here in the US. Until about five years ago I routinely qualified for the Earned Income Credit, and was on (State provided) healthcare meant for the impoverished despite working like 90 hour weeks. It’s not uncommon for workers in retail, warehousing and service industries to qualify for food stamps and public housing support.
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Totally. At least the way loopholes are used in our process of writing laws, they’re often put in there intentionally, so I’d say the word covers intentional ambiguity. Taxes are even used as an example in the definition:
loop·hole
noun
an ambiguity or inadequacy in the law or a set of rules.
“they exploited tax loopholes”
Oh, I see @Ryuthrowsstuff and I are using different definitions. It’s no biggie, but in our system, the ambiguity is often very intentional and designed in, as part of the policy, so it’s kind of a “tomato” “tomahto” thing, I think. Not really worth arguing about, imo…or rather, correcting someone about 
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Thank you so much for that long complicated suggestion, but I’m gonna keep saying loophole. Thx for understanding.
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I just think it’s worth stressing that we do this on purpose. Jeff Bezos paying no tax is the way it’s supposed to be. Oil companies getting paid to operate is deliberate.
It’s not the Trumpian “too smart to pay taxes” where clever people find a way. As a point of policy we decided the Trumps shouldn’t pay taxes.
To be fair, you did make yourself a glutton for punishment; it is known that there are certain folks who don’t seem to be able grok brevity or humility.
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They still pay SS and medicare though. (which, when you include the employer/self-employed contribution, is equal to the “income tax” portion which they don’t pay.
Also of interest for our non-US readers , the Social Security tax, (12% in reality) is capped at around $120,000. (you are only taxed on the 1st 120,000 of your income), so it becomes less than a rounding error for millionaires, but is still a huge burden for the poor who desperately need the money.
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God and then there’s the fact that poorer people pay in a more critical amount for their quality of life while working and then the check they get IF they even live long enough to collect SS benefits likely won’t be enough to live on without significant savings they’re unlikely to have. It’s really awful.
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Alpers, Philip, Amélie Rossetti and Marcus Wilson. 2020. Guns in the European Union: Rate of All Gun Deaths per 100,000 People. Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney. GunPolicy.org, 9 June. Accessed 17 September 2021. at:
Compare the European Union – Rate of All Gun Deaths per 100,000 People
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Moved to New Zealand in my late 40s where the life expectancy for dudes is 5 years longer.
So do I get all 5 of those years or some fraction thereof?
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I guess it depends on how healthy and fit you were up until you moved there. The general advantages of a nationalized healthcare system, quick and very effective pandemic response, comparatively lower opioid use, low homicide rate (particularly by firearms) all combine to pull your life expectancy up toward typical New Zealander levels.
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Woo Hoo! Suck it, America!
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