Don't Mess With Taxes

The many differences between European countries and the United States extend to taxes.

The Tax Foundation recently looked at the latest tax data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD. That 2011 material shows that consumption taxes are the largest source of tax revenue for OECD countries.

That's not a surprise, notes the Tax Foundation, since all but one OECD nation levy value added taxes, or VATs, at relatively high rates.

Which is the lone non-VAT country? The United States.

Uncle Sam relies the most on individual income taxes. Combined federal, state and local taxes raised approximately 37 percent of all U.S. tax revenue in 2011, notes the Washington, D.C.-based tax policy group.

By comparison, individual income taxes in all other OECD countries accounted for around 24 percent.

You can check out the rest of the tax group's findings on European and U.S. tax tendencies in its Fiscal Fact #443, Sources of Government Revenue in the OECD, 2014.

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