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This year, Uncle Sam will take his cut of the past year’s earnings on April 18. Many taxpayers are undoubtedly wondering how this year’s Tax Day will affect their finances, as a lot of people are still struggling financially as a result of the pandemic. Since the tax code is so complicated and has rules based on individual household characteristics, it’s hard for the average person to tell how they will be impacted. One simple ratio known as the “tax burden” helps cut through the confusion. Unlike tax rates, which vary widely based on an individual’s circumstances, tax burden measures...

What do the French digital services tax, the employers' share of payroll taxes, and the corporate income tax all have in common? They are rarely shouldered by those entities and individuals targeted by legislators. In fact, one of the most important things to know about taxes is that the people who actually write the checks to the Internal Revenue Service (or to its French equivalent) are seldom the ones who actually shoulder its burden. In 2004, economist Stephen Entin wrote, "The economic burden of a tax frequently does not rest with the person or business who has the statutory liability...

Weakening of the family generally occurs in an environment of weakening of religion. As France is gripped by civil disorder, many commentators identify, quite correctly, as the culprit the outsized burden that France's bloated welfare state places on its citizens. According a recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the highest tax burden in the industrialized world is in France — 46.1 percent of GDP. In the United States, it is 27 percent, which includes taxes paid at all levels of government — federal, state and local. Welfare state spending in France is 32 percent of GDP,...

Germany has the second-highest tax burden for single earners among high-income countries, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Thursday. The news has come amid a large budget surplus in Germany and no plans under the new coalition government to drastically change personal income taxes. […] In its “Taxing Wages” report, the OECD calculated the “net personal average tax rate” (NPATR) to determine a country’s tax burden. The NPATR equals the sum of personal income tax plus social security contributions minus cash benefits as a percentage of gross earnings. Single earners in Germany who have no children...

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, Colorado collected $25.4 billion in state and local taxes—or $4,590 for every man, woman, and child. While this is an impressive sum of money, it tells us little about whether or not the average Colorado taxpayer can afford this level of taxation. ... Colorado’s state and local tax burden (tax collections divided by private sector personal income) was the sixth lowest in the nation for FY 2016 at 11.8 percent—or -17 percent below the national average of 14.3 percent. ... Colorado’s tax burden has increased over time by only 3 percent to 11.8 percent in...

Read article at link, but here is the important graphic.

A new report by the OECD reveals that Germany is second only to Belgium when it comes to high tax rates in developed countries worldwide. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported on Tuesday that Germany has the second highest tax rate after Belgium, when comparing 35 developed countries around the world. The OECD calculated each country’s tax wedge — the gap between what employers take home in pay and what it costs to employ them, including personal income tax and social security contributions. Germany had a tax wedge for single, childless workers of 49.4 percent, behind Belgium...

There are few things I dislike more than paying taxes. As Americans, a third of all your hard earned dollars is confiscated by the U.S. government. Most of us get to determine what we do with our money – but not when it comes to taxes. However, there is the argument that taxes are a function of our democratic system. Those taxes are the result of laws implemented by freely elected representatives. If anything, we — the voters — are as much to blame for the muddied tax codes as are the nitwit politicians we elect.

City officials are pushing property-tax hikes, sales-tax hikes, and even a commuter tax and financial-transaction tax. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s wish for a $474 million sales-tax increase to help pay for the county’s growing pension debt has been granted. The hike pushes the sales-tax rate back up to 10.25 percent in Chicago – the same as it was when Preckwinkle took office in 2010. And that’s not the only new tax residents have to face. Preckwinkle is just the latest local leader to usher in a tax increase. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel created a new tax earlier this...

There's "economic patriotism" and then there's just being a smart businessperson.The Tax Foundation has launched a new statistical benchmark that ranks the 34 most industrialized countries in the world according to 40 different tax criteria. The US came in 32nd. Only Spain and Italy finished lower. The low US ranking helps explain why inversions are becoming so popular - something that enrages President Obama and the Democrats who see all that tax money leaving the country for sunnier climes. Wall Street Journal: The Tax Foundation benchmark compares developed economies with large and expensive governments, but the U.S. would do even...

WASHINGTON - There's a much bigger, largely untold story behind the renewed debate over U.S. corporations who merge with foreign firms to reduce their federal tax bills. The latest chapter in the story concerns Walgreen, the nation's largest drugstore chain, which plans to go ahead with a cash and stock purchase of a Swiss company that could have resulted in a big tax cut on its corporate profits. Walgreen, however, decided against moving overseas, saying it plans to keep its corporate roots in the U.S. But the back-story involves far more fundamental issues that the news media either played...

The corporate inversions just keep on coming, and the White House and its allies are calling them unpatriotic. But it's a funny sort of "patriotism" that insists American businesses put the Treasury's insatiable appetite for revenue ahead of the best interests of their customers, shareholders, and employees. The latest inversion — the term for a corporate merger or acquisition that allows a US company to reincorporate overseas — is the largest to date: Chicago-based pharmaceutical company AbbVie is paying $55 billion to acquire Shire PLC, an Irish drug maker incorporated in the United Kingdom, but with a manufacturing and management...

The bloody crisis between the pro-Western two thirds of Ukraine and pro-Russian third of the country is about taxes. The recent $17 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan required Ukraine on May 1st to raise taxes and increase natural gas prices by 50%. With about 58% of the Ukraine’s industry in the eastern zone and workers there making about 50% higher wages, the east is paying the majority of the tax increase. Although residential users will not feel pain from the natural gas price increase until fall, eastern heavy industry is feeling the pain immediately. With the corrupt west raising...

The majority of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics believe that the federal deficit should be reduced only or primarily through spending cuts. The survey out Monday found that 56 percent of the NABE members surveyed felt that way, while 37 percent said they favor equal parts spending cuts and tax increases. The remaining 7 percent believe it should be done only or mostly through tax increases. As for how to reduce the deficit, nearly 40 percent said the best way would be to contain Medicare and Medicaid costs. Nearly a quarter recommended overhauling the tax system...

Compared with that 38% of taxes paid by the top 1% of earners, the bottom 50% pay just 2.7% of the taxes collected.

GO TO THIS SITE : http://mytaxburden.org/ 2011 INCOME TAX CALCULATOR Fill out the left-hand column and click Calculate to estimate your 2011 income tax under three scenarios: (1) Congress allows all of the Bush tax cuts to expire; (2) Congress acts to extend into 2011 all of the Bush tax cuts; and (3) Congress passes the tax laws suggested in President Obama's budget, letting some tax cuts expire, extending some, and enacting some new tax laws.

Fiscal Policy: The latest data show a record number of people with no tax obligation. We also have the highest-earning nontaxpayers ever. With more riding the wagon and fewer pulling, it should soon break down. A record number of the 142 million tax returns filed in 2008 resulted in no taxes owed, according to the Tax Foundation's analysis of the latest IRS data. About 51.6 million returns, or 36.3%, were filed by those whose deductions, exemptions and tax credits wiped out any federal income-tax obligation. These aren't people who have overpaid their taxes or had so much withheld from their...

The majority of the taxpayers in our country believe it a foregone conclusion that taxes will rise substantially in the near future and that the Bush tax cuts will soon be no more than a footnote of political history. You don't need to be a genius to see that the government will have to raise more revenue to pay for seemingly infinite spending, but before we resign ourselves to higher taxes, we should consider defending the Bush tax cuts against the left. Two of the most oft-cited objections to the Bush tax cuts by the left are that it helped...

New York state tops the country in taxes collected by the state and local governments, siphoning off $5,260 per person a year, a business group said Thursday. New York's combined local and state tax burden was 53 percent above the national average and $339 more than the second-most taxed state, Connecticut, said Robert Ward of The Public Policy Institute of The Business Council of New York State. The study was based on 2004 U.S. Census data. In 2002, the combined tax burden was $4,684 per state resident. Total state and local taxes collected in New York topped $100 billion for...

Hawaii residents paid more state taxes in 2004 than residents of any other state in the country... Hawaii residents paid an average of $3,050 per person in 2004, while Texans paid the least — an average of $1,368. Every state but one collected more taxes per person in 2004 than it did a decade earlier... State taxpayer burdens increased by an average of 41 percent from 1994 to 2004. Only Alaska saw the amount it collects per person decline. Even when the numbers are adjusted for inflation, the individual tax burdens increased in 43 states. Rising education and Medicaid costs...