What Is the Difference Between the Statutory and Effective Tax Rate?
If your tax rate is 20%, does that mean you will pay 20 cents in taxes for every dollar you earn? It’s not quite that simple, so let’s look at the difference between statutory and effective tax rates.
The statutory tax rate is the rate imposed by law on taxable income that falls within a given tax bracket. The effective tax rate is the percentage of income actually paid by an individual or a company after taking into account tax breaks (including loopholes, deductions, exemptions, credits and preferential rates).
For example, an individual making $40,000 in 2019 would find him or herself in a bracket with a maximum statutory tax rate of 22 percent. However, the average effective tax rate for someone with that income is 7.9 percent after taking into account marginal tax rates, the standard deduction and other provisions for which they may be eligible.
The same concept applies to corporate taxes. The federal statutory corporate tax rate is currently set at 21.0 percent — reduced from 35.0 percent by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). However, the U.S. tax code has many preferences that affect the rate actually paid by corporations; taking those preferences into account, the average effective tax rate for corporations was 19.7 percent in 2021.
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Further Reading
Six Charts That Show Why Corporate Tax Revenues are Low in the U.S. Right Now
Compared to historical trends and other advanced economies, corporate tax revenues in the United States are low.
The U.S. Corporate Tax System Explained
Revenues raised by the corporate income tax represent the third-largest category of federal revenues in the United States.
How No Tax on Overtime Will Affect Federal Revenues and Tax Fairness
This new, temporary deduction will cost $90 billion dollars over the next four years, while undermining tax equity and making the tax system more complex.