Could we stop talking about top marginal income tax rates as if graduated income taxation wasn't a thing? You will pay less taxes in California than Mississippi or Alabama if you are poor.

Even if you are a single person in California making $400k/year (which I would call pretty rich!), you are only paying 8.38% of your income in state tax (you don't even hit the 13.3% bracket until a million dollars or so?). In total, you are paying 39.22% of your income in taxes (including federal and payroll). As a baseline, if you are in Texas which doesn't have state income tax, you are paying around 31% for the same income.

> and most state income taxes aren't as progressive as the ones in CA.

That's why poor wind up paying more in flat tax states, it is simply WAI.

Marginal rates don't matter as much as how much you actually pay. On paper, CA has a top rate of 12.3%...on income over 720k dollars. It exists, but it doesn't seem like a thing we should ponder too much.

States only have so much power in setting tax rates, given that people are somewhat mobile. California being overpopulated for so long gave them some latitude here, but honestly income inequality isn't going to be handled at any level below federal.

But the point about Europe is right, but only in the sense that Europeans don't pay nearly as much in income taxes as most Americans think they do.

> But the point about Europe is right, but only in the sense that Europeans don't pay nearly as much in income taxes as most Americans think they do.

Why do you say this? Middle class Europeans pay significantly higher taxes than middle class Americans.

If we go by total tax burden (including VAT, sales tax, property tax, income tax):

https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us-taxes-co...

Denmark is the highest at 45%, compared to America's 27%. Switzerland, the only European country I've lived in, is just a hair above the USA at 28/29%. UK is only a few points above that, while France is just below Denmark. So I guess it really depends?

Yes, it depends on the country. but the European average is well above the US.

Also, the US has a more progressive federal income tax code than Europe (or every other developed country), so the tax burden in the US is carried more by the upper class than it is in those other countries, resulting in the average middle class American paying significantly lower taxes than a peer in Europe.

Most of that difference disappears when you consider insurance premiums and retirement, however. I compared a few countries when a Danish mentioned that they weren’t really seeing a huge difference and you have to be in the top few percentiles for high American healthcare costs not to cancel out the tax savings, and by their account it was a far less stressful process to get care as well.

Some of it disappears but not all, and the Danes are doing well economically. The Spanish, French, etc. not so much.

You've got to compute the entire package. One reason Switzerland comes in around the USA is that they require health insurance and retirement to be funded by the user (mandatory, this system is what Obama/RomneyCare was actually based off of). Denmark uses taxes instead, so their rate looks higher. You can't just make broad assumptions that taxation is for the same thing.

People do. Americans come out well ahead on disposable income.

You keep comparing the US to Switzerland, which is a giant outlier in Europe and probably the most like the US in many ways (as you pointed out), when you should be comparing it to France, Germany, and all the other larger EU states with a stagnant economy and populations that have gotten substantially poorer relative to the US over the last 20+ years.

Also, because healthcare in the US is such a disaster, we do pay about what many other countries pay for socialized medicine via taxes, and then basically everyone under 65 (aka the people who cost way less to insure) have to pay for it again in the private sector.

If we could get that under control, there would be no competition economically.

I've only ever lived in Switzerland and none of the other European countries. But I remember visiting France and Germany...things are so cheap there compared to Swiss! You could eat out and not pay 100CHF per person. I do have friends in other parts of Europe (e.g. NL, DE, DK, FR) and while they like our salaries, they don't really like our costs.

> If we could get that under control, there would be no competition economically.

I don't think America would be the same if it did, and I don't think Europeans are pining for "American success" even if you discount our broken healthcare system.

A friend living there used to say, Switzerland has twice the salary but thrice the costs.