# Tax burden on average Americans **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 18, 2022, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452 "2022-10-18T17:46:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/41 "2022-10-20T01:25:38Z")
> [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > But a few years back, before I retired, I was paying 6% of my paycheck in FICA taxes, and another 6% in Massachusetts state taxes Wait, when was the Massachusetts state tax rate 6%? ---
**Author:** ![Quondam\_Mechanic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quondam_mechanic/32/3404_2.png) [@Quondam\_Mechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quondam_Mechanic)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/42 "2022-10-20T01:47:06Z")
IIRC hat’s at least approximately correct for the late teens, and I think it hadn’t changed much for some time. (That’s the state income tax I’m talking about, just to be clear, and not ignoring the inevitable deductions that came with it.) ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/43 "2022-10-20T02:47:50Z")
It was 5.95% from 1990 to 1999, then started dropping. Voters in 2000 approved Question 4, which would have dropped the rate to five percent over three years, but instead state legislators approved a law making reduction incumbent upon the state hitting revenue targets. The rate was 5.85% in 2000, 5.6 in 2001, 5.3% between 2002 and 2011, 5.25% 2012-13, 5.2% 2014, 5.15% in 2015, 5.1% in 2016-2018, 5.05% in 2019, and has been an even five percent since 2020. Source: [Top State Tax Rates](https://users.nber.org/~taxsim/state-rates/maxrate.html) ---
**Author:** ![Quondam\_Mechanic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quondam_mechanic/32/3404_2.png) [@Quondam\_Mechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quondam_Mechanic)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/44 "2022-10-20T03:07:27Z")
Uh-oh, he’s using facts! ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/45 "2022-10-20T03:39:37Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Plus sales tax and property taxes. I offered my number as Here is the minimum ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/46 "2022-10-20T07:22:52Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > One reasonably straightforward presentation of international tax rates for comparison. > > [Tax Comparisons Around The World | MoveHub](https://www.movehub.com/advice/tax-comparisons-around-the-world/) > > I’d definitely agree that you should be immediately suspicious of any comparison that boils down to one typical American figure. As the commentary notes, US state rates will depend on which state you’re in and sit on top of the quoted figures. That source reports Denmark’s tax rate is 12-27%, while PWC reports it at over 50%. Quite a disparity there. > **[Denmark - Individual - Taxes on personal income](https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/denmark/individual/taxes-on-personal-income)** > > Detailed description of taxes on individual income in Denmark ---
**Author:** ![Quondam\_Mechanic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quondam_mechanic/32/3404_2.png) [@Quondam\_Mechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quondam_Mechanic)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/47 "2022-10-20T13:26:21Z")
Folks, thanks to all for delving into this mess. You’ve adduced a substantial amount of well-documented information on an unavoidably complex situation, and I think we now have at least a reasonably good feel for the answer. It’s unfortunate that digging out the data is so fraught with varieties of sources, some hard-to-find and some dubious, given that people ideally would be voting on the basis of facts like these. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/48 "2022-10-20T14:25:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If you truly want the average, it’s simple: Take the government’s total income, and divide that by the number of Americans, and that’s the average amount of tax each individual pays. For the average rate, take the income of the government, and divide that by the total earnings of all Americans. If the OP is equating average tax burden with average individual tax rate, dividing government income by earnings will give a different answer than averaging all the individual tax rates. If my pretend country comprises three people, A, B, and C, making $100, $100, and $100,000 who pay $10, $10, and $40,000, respectively, my knee-jerk reaction is to say the mean burden is 20% and the median burden 10%, as opposed to the 39.9% we get by just dividing the sums. But I don’t know that there’s any single right way to look at this. | | A | B | C | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | income | $100 | $100 | $100,000 | | tax | $10 | $10 | $40,000 | | rate/burden | 10% | 10% | 40% | ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2022, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452/49 "2022-10-20T18:36:28Z")
> [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > given that people ideally would be voting on the basis of facts like these. Why would that be ideal? It seems to me that the ideal tax rate for one country isn’t dependent on what other countries are doing. A lot of circumstances might vary between the countries. Seems to me the issue is more a combination of 1) what services you think the government should be providing 2) how much these are plausibly likely to cost 3) how the expenses should be apportioned. And 2) is affected by just how those services are to be provided, of course. Part of the problem is that very few people have the time to have a fully educated opinion about all of that, and tend, instead of recognizing their unavoidable ignorance, instead to think a) that the only services that need to be provided are the ones they themselves are using directly and obviously, and sometimes not even those (I know people who routinely drive across multiple states who say roads should be privately funded) and b) that those services can be provided for a whole lot less money than they actually can, in part because c) they have little or no idea what work and resources are required to actually provide them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-burden-on-average-americans/973452.md?page=2)