International Tax Burdens

Are income taxes lower in the US than in Europe? This OECD produced analysis and graph says yes, but with some caveats. The broader lesson seems to be to have children, no matter where you live.

For property tax wonks

Collegues,

For any wanting to look deeper into Minnesota property taxes after last weeks class I would suggest you visit the House of Representatives non-partisan research departments website on property taxes. There you will find a number of documents providing an overview of property taxes in Minnesota, basic terms and concepts, discussion of the property tax base, limited market value, the distribution of property taxes across different property classes, the issue of levy limits that we discussed in class, and a whole lot more.

Wonks by the way is a term of respect.

Minnesota Tax Incidence Study

The Minnesota Department of Revenue released a report in 2007 entitled "2007 Minnesota Tax Incidence Study." (Punchy title, huh) Given our recent class discussions, I thought others may be interested in reading the report. Also, the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition has put together a business card-sized chart from the report that shows a 2009 estimate for effective tax rates by population decile for all state and local taxes. Unfortunately, the results reveal that Minnesota's state and local tax system disproportionately impacts low-income households.

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[JZ's note:The JRLC graph of effective tax rates is shown below -- ]