[baybal2]

That point is totally valid. "The West" is rapidly becoming a mirror image of the Soviet Union. With half or more of economic value of your work going to uncle Sam, how this is not a state ran economy?

If I remember correctly, the split for a typical Soviet citizen was 60/40, and this is where the West will be this decade if government expenses will continue rising at the speed they do.

[pavlov]

Comparing tax rates with the Soviet Union is totally meaningless because the economy was fundamentally supply-limited.

It’s not that people didn’t have money — they didn’t have anything to buy that they actually wanted. The same applied to the government-owned businesses. The economy was flush with rubles that everyone desperately wanted to spend on something. The tax rate was just optics.

[aaronbrethorst]

Top marginal income tax rates under President Eisenhower (a Republican) were in the low 90%s.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/...

[nickik]

This is a total BS argument. Nobody ever payed these taxes. Its far more accurate to look at what part of the GDP the government is spending. That number was the further back you go.

[aaronbrethorst]

I'm citing my sources. You could at least show me the courtesy of doing the same.

[snowpanda]

Not OP but he's right, your statement is slightly misleading, not many people actually paid that (fewer than 10,000 households[1]). A good source as you asked for can be found here:

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/

[aaronbrethorst]

The Tax Foundation has been called a “deliberate fraud” by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation)

Also, 10,000 households in the 1950s is roughly equivalent to the top 1% of the top 1%, and exactly who i’d expect to be taxed at a rate of 90%+.

[nickik]

I'm not saying the 90% number did not exist. My point is that overall government was lower then. What part of that are you not understanding?

[rebolek]

If you compare the West to the USSR, you certainly don't know what you are talking about. Taxation in the East block was really not the problem.

[baybal2]

I'm not talking about per se taxation, but the split how much economic value of your work you get in your pocket with a paycheck.

In USSR, 60 percent of economic value of labour was taken by the state. The West went from <20% to over 50% since WW2 and is about exceed that 60% soon.

[bufferoverflow]

That's true of (most of) Europe, the US taxes are lower.