As April 15 approaches, many of us are preparing to pay our taxes. On some level, all voters realize that taxes help underwrite government services they value, that they are “the price we pay for a civilized society.” However, unlike our monthly bills, taxes for government services feel burdensome and unfair. But are they?

Based on an analysis of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of 38 nations dedicated to democracy and market economies, the United States ranks 31st in terms of the taxes it raises. The OECD establishes that ranking by comparing a nation’s tax revenues to its gross domestic product (GDP), the value of the goods and services that nation produces. The US tax-to-GDP ratio was 27.7% compared to the OECD average of 34%. Given this relatively low ration, it is hard to assert that our aggregate taxes are especially burdensome. An examination of the kinds of taxes we pay, however, illustrates why voters feel their personal taxes are unfair.

In broad terms there are two kinds of personal taxes: progressive taxes, levied based upon one’s ability to pay; and regressive taxes, levied across-the-board without regard for ability to pay.

Income taxes and social security taxes are the primary examples of progressive taxes. In the most simplistic terms, if someone earns $30,000 per year and pays a 3% income tax, they will pay $900 in tax to provide government services. Someone earning $1,000,000 and paying the same 3% income tax will pay $30,000 in income tax. Because the impact of a lower income person paying $900 is far more onerous than the impact of a millionaire paying $30,000, income taxes are often graduated to make them fairer. In a graduated tax system, wealthier individuals pay a higher percentage on earnings above a certain threshold. Consequently, wealthier taxpayers provide a much larger share of the revenues the government collects.

Sales taxes are one example of a regressive tax. A minimum wage worker and millionaire pay the same sales tax for a gallon of gasoline, for example, yet the bite the sales tax takes out of the minimum wage worker’s budget is far greater than that of a millionaire. Since minimum wage workers and millionaires generally spend the same amount on items typically subject to sales taxes, affluent taxpayers tend to favor sales taxes over income taxes.

Property taxes are also regressive since income is often not considered in their collection. For example, the property tax on my home in Etna did not decrease when my income dropped after I retired. Indeed, my property taxes increased as the assessed value of my home did. Property taxes are the primary source of local revenue. Reliance on property taxes is especially problematic because it exacerbates economic inequities. Since the revenue a town can raise is based on the value of real estate in that town, a community with highly valued real estate can raise more revenue with lower tax rates than a poorer town with depressed real estate values. The increased revenue raised in the affluent community can be used to pay for better roads, better schools, newer fire engines, plows, ambulances and police cars, and better services for its citizens.

This differential in property tax bases results in gross disparities between communities that are difficult to mitigate without some redistribution of resources by the state, a step few states are willing to take.

Are these personal taxes fair? A recent Gallup poll found that 34% of taxpayers felt the federal income taxes were the most unfair and 29% found the local property taxes to be the most unfair. Given the findings in a recent OECD report on how developed countries raise taxes, this makes sense. The OECD’s report concluded that the tax structure in the United States is characterized by “substantially higher revenues from taxes on personal income, profits and gains, property taxes, and goods and services taxes.” U.S. governments get 43% of their revenue from taxes on personal income, profits and gains, as compared to the OECD average of 24%, and 12% of their revenue from property taxes, as compared to the 6% average in other countries. This helps explain why taxpayers feel federal income and local property taxes are unfair.

This sense of unfairness contributes to voters’ sense that taxes are a burden and, given that sentiment, anyone running for office at the federal or state level pledges to reduce — or, in the case of New Hampshire, reject completely — broad-based taxes. And when revenues diminish at the federal and state levels, those governments push more and more responsibilities and more and more tough decisions to the local level. They often do so on the pretext that complicated and deep-seated problems like poverty, income inequality, individual well-being and environmental degradation are not the purview of their level of government. The consequences of this downshifting of responsibilities means local governments find themselves wrestling with thorny problems like child care, affordable housing, drug treatment and mental health services, problems that require more tax revenues than property taxes can yield. So these thorny problems remain unresolved. They fester, creating more and more frustration.

There is a way to resolve these festering issues: increase the revenues available to the state and federal governments. But as we enter another election cycle no one running for office is advocating for more tax revenue. No one running for office is telling voters that our social security taxes and corporate taxes are lower than other market-driven democracies. No one is suggesting other kinds of revenue sources like the value added taxes that constitute 21% of the revenues in other OECD countries. No one wants to suggest that a new tax source might make it possible to reduce the unfair property and income tax burdens in our nation.

And as we enter another election cycle, the voters who suffer the most from the services we don’t provide due to the lack of government revenue will vote for candidates who promise to lower their taxes despite the fact that lower income taxes favor the wealthiest in our country and the cuts required to balance the budget fall hardest on those who can least afford it. Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. Have the tax cuts we are promised made us more civilized?

Wayne Gersen is a retired school administrator. He lives in Etna.