La Tortue Cynique / The Cynical Turtle

Regarding fiscal pressure...

Keith Devins says that France is a socialist country because we have some laws he doesn't grok and some high tax rate figures... Well, on this basis I would say that the USA are an oiligarchy, and it's not much better. Regarding the high tax rates, USA are taxed mainly on the capital, and France on the labour, that's perhaps why they are true capitalist Last thing, OECD did a survey of fiscal pressure with redistribution taken in account. The results (figures date from 2000, sorry, I can't find a link, this data come from a printed source):

(Regional news, 2003/01/11 09:40) lien permanent

Fiscal pressure, second approach

Keith Devins posted a link to an OECD Observer article regarding top marginal rates. What is the top marginal rate? I'll try with a simplified example. Paul earns 1000 units a year, he's among the top earners in his country. Regarding taxes, this income can be divided like this:

Paul should pay 400×tax level 1+...+100×tax level n. Considering that tax systems are always more complicated than we hope, there are other factor to be taken in account. The considered article just does this, and we obtain the top marginal rate, which is the tax rate applied on the last slice of your income when you earn more than a lot. Here are the results (figures from 1999):

Disclaimer: I'm neither a lawyer nor an economist (and I was pretty bad when I studied those topics). All feedback welcome kame@cinemasie.com.(Regional news, 2003/01/11 09:40) lien permanent