In which country do the top 10% of income earners pay the highest share of tax?

[memphis]

 the comfortable middle class is rather cosseted in the US

I suppose by comfortable middle class, you mean the 80-98th percintiles. Those of us actually in the middle are anything but comfortable and cosseted.

[TeePee4Prez]

The Gini coefficients are interesting. On initial inspection I thought they were just plain wrong, until it occurred to me that these were pre-tax/transfer calculations - which shows little difference between the US and the rest of the west. I'm more used to seeing post-tax/transfer calculations which tell a rather different story.

Yes indeed. Without having examined it, I suspect transfer payments are less rigorously means tested in the US than many places (each time an upper middle class kid goes to a heavily subsidized public university like Berkeley, we have a transfer payment, and it certainly ain't means tested), and of course we may well have less than some places in the relative amount of such transfer payments overall. After all, for example, we spend more than most as a percentage of GDP on defense.

But I suspect one of the dirty little secrets is that the comfortable middle class is rather cosseted in the US, which is where the bulk of the posters on this forum are going to end up I strongly suspect, so they might want to pay attention to this all. It is their futures which are involved - not mine. I have already largely shot my wad.

Not too surprised with the US actually.  Other countries, middle class people are soaked with higher taxes than we are.  We do need entitlement reforms, I hate to say it.  I know this would politically kill me with senior citizens, but the age should be higher than 65 for Social Security.  In fact, I would go possibly higher than 70, but not above 75.  When 65 was enacted, the average life expectancy was 67.  The current law basically allows for 2 years on SS.  Disability is another ball game and I won't go there.  I looked at the funding status and it don't look pretty for my generation. 

[anvi]

The whole report from which this data came was about inequality in income distribution, and it measured lots of different factors.  Its major conclusion was that income inequality in two thirds of OECD countries has been on the rise in the course of the last decade, and it sought to identify some of the major factors behind this trend.  The challenges of seniors and those afflicted by market income poverty took center stage. 

The report noted that, while social programs in many countries had dramatically reduced pensioner poverty, there have been dramatic withdrawals in recent years of both the workplace and governments in either providing pensions or having a pension option for citizens (the U.K. was of particular note here).  Some British commentators have observed that the withdrawal of the state from pension programs has actually contributed to the boom in housing prices.  Seniors or those planning for retirement would rely on purchasing buy-to-let properties (and therefore also rely on financial institutions) in order to replace job-provided or state-provided pensions.  We have all learned what a risky business this is in the last several years here.  So, while there definitely needs to be significant reforms in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, we have to be quite careful in how these reforms are structured in order to ensure that pensioner poverty does not once again dramatically increase.

Other interesting things the report highlighted were the complicated ways in which market income poverty in many countries was offset by government redistribution and the falling prices of many goods through globalization, but such effects were tempered by rising prices of food and energy as well as rollbacks on government programs.  All this seems to indicate that the middle and lower-middle class as well as the poor in the U.S., though they certainly are not leaned upon by the government for tax revenue, don't for that reason feel secure or "cosseted;" their lower incomes make many aspects of life, cost of living, education costs, health care costs, certainly job security at the moment, and retirement security, matters of some real precariousness for them.  In many other countries (which also arrive at their policies through democratic processes), the middle class trades higher tax liabilities for increased security in many of these areas.  Without appreciable savings or a reliable safety net in place, the middle and lower-middle class and poor don't have much objective security or subjective confidence.

The fate of the upper 2% of income earners is tied to the fates of everyone else, and without a strong middle-class and mechanisms through which wealth can be broadly shared, income inequality will continue to rise and economic growth overall will suffer.  So, while it's certainly true that soaking the rich and no one else for tax revenues won't get us there, it's also true that markets are not fail-safe mechanisms, and governments have a roll in seeing to shared prosperity.  We do have to reform our tax system and our entitlement system, but we have to do so smartly and in a way that ensures the best long-term solution to all these problems, a solution involving both sustained economic growth and widely-felt security.

[Torie]

All very true indeed, but the real question in the end is whether any objection function really exists which accomplishes all of those worthy goals which anvikshiki elucidates so well, given the constraints, which are considerable.

[opebo]

 the comfortable middle class is rather cosseted in the US

I suppose by comfortable middle class, you mean the 80-98th percintiles. Those of us actually in the middle are anything but comfortable and cosseted.

Correct as usual, memphis.  Only a tiny minority of americans are 'middle class' even in the way americans use the term

[anvi]

All very true indeed, but the real question in the end is whether any objection function really exists which accomplishes all of those worthy goals which anvikshiki elucidates so well, given the constraints, which are considerable.

Yes, the constraints are considerable, especially in the grips of global recession.  And such recessions hurt the poor and lower middle-class most.  But even without a recession, it's not a perfect world, and things are changing all the time, so I don't think there will ever be one fixed formula that will deal with everything well.  That's why I'm no fan of rigid political or economic ideologies of any kind.  We have to use both our experience and our creativity to deal with life's challenges, and even then, there are no guarantees.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

You expect me to believe that the top decile in Sweden pay only 26.6% in taxes?

[Beet]

Jas's comment. I should really learn to read threads before commenting.