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26th October 2006 - Fred E. Foldvary, The Progress Report

GDP, total output, of the U.S.A. is $12.6 trillion, which divided by 300 million, yields a per-capita GDP of $42,000. By comparison, the world GDP is about $61 trillion, which for about 6.55 billion persons is a global per-capita GDP of about $9,300.

The U.S. government debt is $8.5 trillion, which is $28,300 per person. Each new baby born in the U.S. is inflicted with this average debt as a future taxpayer.

About half the US population is in the "labor force," those who are either employed or actively seeking employment. That puts the U.S. national income per worker at $84,000. About two-thirds of national income is wages, one sixth is land rent, and one sixth a return to capital goods, so the average gross wage is $56,000, before taxes.

Total state and local taxes in the U.S. are about $4100 per capita. Federal taxes are $8100 per capita, Total U.S. taxes are about 30 percent of GDP, a total of $3,800 trillion, $12,200 per person. Total property taxes in the U.S. are about $330 billion, which is easy to calculate as $1100 per capita. The Tax Foundation provides a table of state property taxes, the latest data being from 2004. Alabama has the lowest tax on real estate, while New Jersey has the highest. However, Louisiana has a homestead exemption on the first $75,000 of the value of a person's home, the biggest real-estate tax exemption in the US., which may make its real-estate taxes the lowest in the USA.

The cost of regulations in the U.S. is about $1.2 trillion, or $4000 per person. The government burden, taxes plus regulation, is thus over $16,000 per person.

http://www.stwr.org/united-states-of-america/population-usa-300-million.html

Data:

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/oecd07.pdf

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_tot_tax_as_of_gdp-taxation-total-as-of-gdp