Estonia#1, Greece#27, U.S.#32!

Cato Institute Senior Fellow, Dan Mitchell

The above rankings relate to International Tax Competitiveness. What an enormous embarrassment for Americans. Here the Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell outlines the ugly mess in which America finds itself.

Wouldn’t you think all candidates running against entrenched Obama Democrats this fall would want to keep this tax competitiveness rankings list close at hand?

I’ve complained over and over again that America’s tax code is a nightmare that undermines competitiveness and retards growth.

Our aggregate fiscal burden may not be as high as it is for many of our foreign competitors, but high tax rates and poor design mean the system is very punitive on a per-dollar-raised basis.

For more information, the Tax Foundation has put together an excellent report measuring international tax competitiveness.

And here’s how the United States ranks.

The United States provides a good example of an uncompetitive tax code. …the United States now has the highest corporate income tax rate in the industrialized world. …The United States places 32nd out of the 34 OECD countries on the ITCI. There are three main drivers behind the U.S.’s low score. First, it has the highest corporate income tax rate in the OECD at 39.1 percent. Second, it is one of the only countries in the OECD that does not have a territorial tax system, which would exempt foreign profits earned by domestic corporations from domestic taxation. Finally, the United States loses points for having a relatively high, progressive individual income tax (combined top rate of 46.3 percent) that taxes both dividends and capital gains, albeit at a reduced rate.