Voices

Tax Rate Infographics

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel as though I’ve been seeing lots more infographics lately, and three of them arrived in my inbox in recent days related to taxes.

One of them comes from the folks at NerdWallet, a personal finance search and research site. They’ve produced some informative charts on corporate tax rates, comparing how much corporations really pay in taxes in the U.S. and other countries. It’s accompanied by study examining the statutory vs. reported tax rates, along with a comparison of the corporate tax reform proposals advanced by President Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney. The study found that 500 of the largest U.S. companies paid an average of 13 percent in federal taxes last year.

In addition, Nerdwallet delved more closely into the corporate taxes paid by large corporations such as Apple and GE, producing an interactive tool with another infographic. The tool not only shows the taxes reported as paid by the corporations and their tax rate, but also compares the salary of the highest paid employee and the average employee pay. The tax rate transparency tool allows users to select any of the 500 largest corporations in America and see the tax rate that company paid, along with the name and compensation of the highest paid executive.

With the Olympics in the news this month, along with a bill introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to exempt U.S. athletes from paying taxes on their Olympic medal winnings (see Rubio Proposes Bill to Eliminate Tax on Olympic Medals), it was only natural for someone to come up with an infographic.

GoBankingRates.com created an infographic highlighting the salary disparity between the highest paid gold medalists, like Michael Phelps, and the rest of the Olympic athletes, and how much they can expect to pay in taxes. That is, unless Rubio’s bill passes and medalists are exempted from paying taxes on their winnings. The proposal has reportedly won the support of the White House.

The White House has also gotten into the infographics act, posting a new graphic that explains President Obama's proposal for extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes under $250,000 and how failure to pass it in the House would affect the middle class. His tax proposal has already passed in the Senate, but the House rejected it in favor of a Republican bill to extend the tax cuts for all income levels. A deal on what to do about extending the tax cuts is not expected until after the election, during the lame-duck session of Congress.

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