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Comment by nopassrecover | Hacker News Reader

As "bad" as 15%? Tax is at least 38% here in Au for that wage (was 60% not so long ago).

Well, it's 15% for FICA (employee + employer), but there's also normal income tax, which starts at 10% and gets up to 35%. And then the state and, depending on where you live, the city have income and/or payroll tax as well (usually in the single digits).

That's "only" for social security and medicare. You still pay federal income tax on top of that.

And on top of that the state income taxes in most states, and sales taxes that usually approach 8 or 9%, and property taxes on real estate (and autos where I live). Also if you manage to save anything after all that, you can look forward to paying dividend or capital gains taxes (a form of double taxation).

It is a myth that America is a low tax nation.

Most other countries have twice that sales tax, as well as having all those other taxes. The best rough estimate of taxation burden might be proportion of government spending of GDP, which IIRC is about 35% for US, and is lower than eg most European countries.

Government spending as a percentage of GDP per country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#Government_...

You need to take into account what you get in addition to what you pay.

In American those taxes provide a strong military. Most of the rest of the world are very poorly equipped by comparison. Other countries get health care and education.

Improving foreign policy would be a cheap way to reduce military costs - relying on a militia was the American tradition up until the Cold War and is indeed one of the reasons you have the right to arms.

Keep in mind that the US is a deficit spender, so effective tax should be even lower than that figure.

As other pointed out that is payroll tax, not income tax.

The differences in tax between the US and Australia are not so much in the headline rates as in the deductions.

In the US mortgage interest on a home you live in is tax deductible.

And in the US you get taxed as an economic unit with your spouse and children.

So a home owner with a big mortgage and a spouse at home looking after kids pays much less tax in the US.

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