Compared to many European countries, America seems to go rather easy on its high-income taxpayers:
Note: Top Personal Income Tax refers to the federal marginal statutory rate. Source: Tax Foundation.
Of course, appearances can be deceiving: statutory tax rates aren’t what people actually pay; that would be their effective tax rate. And it turns out that rich Europeans often pay much less in taxes than their official rates would suggest:
Note: Top Personal Income Tax refers to the marginal statutory rate. The average effective rate is based on taxes actually paid. Source: Tax Foundation.
In fact, thanks to loopholes, deductions, exemptions, credits, and other tax breaks, effective tax rates in many “high tax” European countries are lower than in America, at least for the rich and not counting Scandinavia.*
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* On a related note: even though the top statutory tax rate in the US reached 91% during the 1950s, it turns out that the richest 1% paid an average of just 42% of their income in taxes over that period. Which is still pretty high, considering the top 1% pay around 26% these days.
Links:
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/eu/laffer-curve-statutory-effective-tax-rates-europe/
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/