Fact Check: Trump’s Claim That the US Is the ‘Highest Taxed Nation in the World’
Taxes

Fact Check: Trump’s Claim That the US Is the ‘Highest Taxed Nation in the World’

GraphicStock

President Donald Trump took to Twitter Wednesday morning to try to change the national conversation from DACA back to tax reform. "We are the highest taxed nation in the world - that will change," he wrote.

This is a claim he has made before. At a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, this summer, Trump said that, in America, "we have the highest taxes in the world."

In reality, the United States has average or below average taxes compared to similar economies.

The Pultizer Prize-winning fact-checking site Politifact.com calls the President's assertion, which he has been making for a couple of years now, "one of his most repeated falsehoods."

Regardless of how you measure the tax burden, the President's claim is not borne out by the facts. As measured by percentage of GDP, numerous European countries that provide more social services tax their citizens more heavily than the U.S. does, the BBC reports: "In 2015, the U.S. tax take came in at 26.4 percent of GDP, well below countries such as Italy at 43.3 percent, France at 45.5 percent and Denmark at 46.6 percent."

You can see this reflected in a chart by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in 2016, which uses slightly different numbers. By their calculations, Denmark comes in at over 50 percent. But the U.S. remains steady at 26 percent, significantly below the average of 34 percent. As such, America is actually "among the lowest-taxed countries in the OECD."

OECD taxes - CFRB

In terms of how much individuals pay, Pew also reports that taxes in the U.S. are, comparatively, "low." Its research shows that, "in all cases, the U.S. was below the 39-nation average – in some cases, well below," when it comes to taxes.

"A single, childless American making the average wage in 2014 ($50,099), for instance, paid 24.8 percent of her gross income in federal income tax and payroll taxes, versus the 39-country average of 27.3 percent. Such a person living in Belgium, by contrast, would pay 42.3 percent of her gross income," writes Pew.

"An American married couple, both working (one at the average wage, one at two-thirds of it) and with two kids, paid 19.4 percent of their gross income in taxes; a similar Belgian family would have paid nearly double that rate, or 38.3 percent."

Pew - taxes chart

And, according to World Atlas, which made its list using data from the World Bank, the countries with the highest taxes in the world include Aruba, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium. The United States doesn't even make the top ten.

It's possible that the President means to refer solely to the corporate tax rate. Politifact adds that, in that case, he would be on more stable ground, since "the United States does have a higher corporate tax rate than most of its industrialized peers." However, the site goes on, "official tax rates are one thing, while the tax rates corporations actually pay can be substantially less. In practice, U.S. companies pay less because they can claim deductions and exclusions."

Regardless, the President has made no such distinction in his speeches.

Forbes Tax Analysts Contributor Robert Goulder suggests that Trump, by repeatedly stating as fact a data point that has been debunked, is trying to mislead crowds on purpose in order to advance an agenda. "If the masses can be convinced that they're grossly overtaxed relative to everyone else in the world, the case for tax reform becomes easier – or at least the case for tax cuts," he writes.

"In reality," Goulder writes, "the United States is among the least-taxed nations within the OECD."

This article originally appeared on CNBC. Read more from CNBC:

* Trump gets millions from golf members. CEOs and lobbyists get access to president

* Map shows that working-class Americans can't afford to live in most US cities

* How far $1 million goes in every state

TOP READS FROM THE FISCAL TIMES