“Free market” orthodoxy holds that high taxes, especially on the rich, make life and economies miserable. U.S. conservativeseven make candidates pledge to “opposeany and all efforts to increase taxes.”

Sources: Credit Suisse Research Institute Global Wealth Report 2014; Henrik Jacobsen Kleven, How Can Scandinavians Tax So Much? Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2014;

OECD, Focus on Top Incomes and Taxation in OECD Countries, May 2014. Icons: Luis Prado.

48.2% 42.8% 45.8%24.8%

Denmark Norway Sweden USA

Tax revenue as share of GDP, 2012

69.8%

60.8%

73.6%

43.3%

Denmark

Norway

Sweden

USA

Highest tax rate rich taxpayers face*

$76,974

$133,686

$79,502

$70,690

Denmark

Norway

Sweden

USA

GDP per adult, 2014

38.4% 30.8% 28.9% 29.3%

USA Sweden Norway Denmark

But Scandinavia’s economies are doing just fine. They’re generating more wealth, by population, than the U.S. economy.

Scandinavian nations, this tax mindset suggests, ought to be basket cases. No major nations levy higher taxes, especially on their rich.

Top 1% share of income growth, 1975-2007

USA Sweden Norway Denmark

46.9% 8.8% 11.7% 2.5%

Top 1% share of national wealth, 2014

Taxing the Rich and Living to Tell the Tale

* Covers 2010 tax rates on income in top tax bracket

High taxes in Scandinavia fund free child care and college education and a wide range of other quality public services. America’s low taxes mean a tattered safety net — and rising inequality.

Originally published in the February 2015 issue of Too Much, the Institute for Policy Studies newsletter on excess and inequality. Subscribe at www.toomuchonline.org.