If you're going to post about politics, at least be polite.
My advise to the typical young person who is interested in politics:
Remember that somewhere in the world there is someone who is both smarter than you and more knowledgeable than you, and has completely opposite political views. This person might even be a friend, a family member, or a future version of yourself. With that in mind, why are you so sure of yourself? Spend less time talking, more time learning.
Keep in mind the source for this, the very right-wing Heritage Foundation. Zimbabwe as number one is especially ridiculous as the only real economy is a shadow economy which cannot be accurately assessed. And although no, I'm not a big fan of taxes, there is a strong correlation (always exceptions) with quality of life, especially maternal and child health care. Nordic countries especially make effective use of what they collect. (I wish we in the US could say the same.)
Thank you for posting this out. An astute observation. I myself am a centrist, but it is definitely noteworthy that this information comes from a source with a demonstrably strong bias.
The data seems accurate, and if anything would seem to go against their anti-tax agenda as the "better" countries tend to have higher tax rates. I've seen other sources for this data on the internet and they are very poor, IMHO, often leaving out the impact of local and regional taxes. Credit where its due, the Heritage Foundation has compiled a very strong data source. But don't listen to me. The source is listed, you can check it out for yourself.
I have to chuckle at my comment, which was made two months before the 2016, when I did indeed consider myself a centrist. I don't think my views have changed much, but I haven't really been able to countenance anything the Republican party has done pretty much since I made this comment. I guess that makes me liberal now? Funny how that works.
It means that the organisation that collected and published the data was specifically set up as a "conservative think tank", was intended to support a political ideology further right than that of Richard Nixon, and has affiliations to the Republican Party (according to Wikipedia). It is possible that some of the decisions they made about how to measure the GDP and what to count as tax would have been intended to support a political agenda, but as @QM says that doesn't seem to be the case.
Would Nixon even be considered right by today's standards? Wasn't he responsible for the inception of the EPA and for the thawing of relations with the PRC?
He signed the bill creating the EPA into law, but he was not responsible for its creation; creating a whole new executive branch is not something the President has the power to do.
As for China, yes he did oversee the opening of China with the world, though this can hardly be construed as a left-wing goal when many right-wing Cold warriors supported this because of the opportunities for trade and isolating the Soviet Union after the Sino-Soviet split.
Nixon was not ideological, he was on the whole quite moderate and pragmatic, but still firmly right of center.
There is a high base-rate in Zimbabwe before which tax is zero or very small, whereas if you earn more money you come under the High Tax rate. This is to make the owners of land who are earning money on crops or animal tending pay up big time.
Zimbabwe is no longer on the list. While I'm sure the government of Zimbabwe would love to confiscate nearly 100% of the wealth of the country, it's likely that their incompetence prevents them from doing so.
Using the Swiss government website tax calculator, with 100,000CHF income and 550,000CHF wealth in Geneva it said tax was 21000 including all income/wealth taxes per year i.e. 21%. Zurich was only around 15%. Swiss sales tax is 7.7% so I'd expect the GDP % amount to be somewhere just below 30%. Haven't looked at all possibilities but definitely can be lower than the other European countries here.
I must have typed every Eastern European country there is, surprised that none of them came up. Then I saw I had only not typed Hungary, the only one that makes the list.
most the the lego pieces are actually made in factory in Czechia. But yeah, Denmark has high taxes, but people don't complain because what they get is good social security, free health care and free education. And it's worth it.
Perhaps being rich makes it easier to avoid social problems? Do you think the trouble in, say, Sierra Leone, is that its tax rates are too low? That Singapore would finally eradicate its last social problem if it could just get its tax rates a bit higher?
Could it be because they are more homogeneous places? Political correctness (see diversity) aside, is it probable/possible that the more homogeneous the society, the less trouble?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "homogeneous" but if you mean what I think you mean then no, the countries on this list are not particularly "homogeneous".
North Korea is the most homogeneous country in the world and is in deep trouble. South Korea is the second most homogeneous country in the world and is highly developed.
I don't think it's a cause and effect relationship though, in either direction. It's more likely that it's just because both low levels of social problems and high tax rates both correlate with wealth.
Pretty sure most of their money comes through visitor donations/spending. From nationsencyclopedia.com: "There are no taxes, no restrictions on the import or export of funds, and no customs or excise duties payable in the Vatican City. Employees of the Vatican pay no income tax and no customs duty on gasoline or goods that they buy in the Vatican. Non-Italians enjoy allowances on their monthly salaries."
Well, communism was/is very much into free healthcare and education, financed by taxes of course. And it wasn't something the post-communist states felt like abandoning.
I didn't think about Cuba until I had 1 second left but by then it was too late. There's no way I would've gotten Lesotho. Given that all of the rest of the countries were European, I assumed that the two that I was missing were European until I saw the answers.
I was kind of surprised to see so many of the Balkans there. I guess they still haven't really recovered from their wars yet, and for some of them, still transitioning into the EU. Then again, the infrastructure and quality of life is noticeably improving in those countries; taxes sure help with that :-)
Every government would love to give itself the largest possible budget to play with by charging the highest possible tax rates. Generally, only countries that are very comfortable for other reasons can get away with it. Put another way, taxes are high in France for the same reason that rents are high in New York--lots of people want to live there, and are willing to pay a premium to do so.
I've just made a quiz on countries with the lowest tax, if anyone's interested: https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/142762/countries-with-the-lowest-tax
The answers are mostly European socialist countries. A factor most people don't appreciate is that Europe is largely stripped of resources and this has to affect their thinking. They don't have any significant petroleum reserves so they need to rely on the Middle East and are willing to look the other way when these countries treat their citizens poorly, promote terrorism and stick to customs that are natural for them but offensive to many Westerners. They are getting smarter by adapting renewable energy sources. If you haven't seen Europe, you don't realize they have to conserve or they'd not have anything left. The Americas, by contrast, have much greater reserves of raw materials and land and can afford, in many but not all ways, to have different policies. I've lived in Europe (Germany, UK, Iceland) and visited about 1/3 of the countries but I greatly prefer living in the USA for its much greater diversity, wealth of resources, friendliness of its people and diverse economy.
PHG, I think you have a strange idea of what socialism is if you think that the listed European countries are socialist. Some have political parties that would like to implement rather more socialist policies, but I think you will find that most are rather more capitalist than socialist. Or, they like the concept of a Social Market. That is to say to attempt regulation of markets and the alleviation of poverty. There is no way I would be describing Germany or the Netherlands as socialist countries; we could continue on a case by case basis. And wait a cotton picking second, are you suggesting that European countries look the other way when they see human rights abuses around the world, whilst the USA does not? That European countries actually perpetrate such abuses themselves and the USA does not?
Really pretty much all countries these days, at least the prosperous ones, are socialist to an extent. The federal government is often the largest employer and holds the most capital. Most places have a federal income tax that goes toward social services. Including the United States. And this is a good thing.
Yep. There are layers, though. Not many countries have "one for all" %. Lower income earners pay, roughly speaking, from 0 up to a little over 20% depending on the country and income. Often, housing is a much bigger financial dilemma than taxation. VAT stings the poor. People living in Switzerland suffer the quite un-European health insurance thing...
...and the genuinely rich people have things like the Channel islands, the Dutch sandwich and whatever needs to be done when the taxman finds your latest gimmick.
The word “tax” is subject to debate. In France, almost half of the taxes are called “social contributions”, and are a form of social insurance: you pay contributions every month and in return you will get pension benefits when you retire and unemployment benefits if you lose your job IN PROPORTION of what you contributed. The difference with a private insurance system is that you don’t get to choose your insurer and that enrolling is mandatory.
Not even close. They are the 175th country in alphabetical order. When you actually sort the data it's 58th after you remove countries that don't have information.
Quebec also has the highest taxes in all of Canada. Something about the French and taxes. The first African country I guessed was Algeria because I knew.. gotta be the French.
I don't by any means trust the Heritage Foundation, and neither should you, but even if this list were accurate, it's rather pointless. It doesn't matter how much taxes you pay, it matters how it compares to what you get out of it. Taxes are an investment in a civilised society. You wouldn't judge an investment by its cost without considering its return, would you?
Take healthcare for instance. Many Europeans receive, on average, way better healthcare than average Americans, and even when you factor in the taxes they pay for it, it comes at a fraction of the cost. Again: on average, Americans pay a lot more for healthcare than Europeans do, without receiving better service on average. How is that any better?
I'm very happy to pay the taxes I do in France, and, if anything, I think they should be even higher, to pay for better universities, better social programs, to ensure that nobody is hungry or homeless. In fact, I'm very proud that my taxes contribute to bettering the society for me, and others.
There are, in fact, and inarguably, some political opinions that nobody over a certain threshold of knowledge and intelligence holds. Not everything is moot or a crapshoot. There are objective truths. Declaring something politically contentious doesn't negate that or make acknowledging facts at any point after the declaration rude, ignorant, biased, or arrogant. But people who don't have the facts on their side often try to make everything political so they can act like it does.
Glad the UK doesn't appear on this, government can't be trusted to spend wisely with the money they already have (mind you, you could probably say that with many countries on that list lol), god forbid I ever pay them a penny over 20%.
My advise to the typical young person who is interested in politics:
Remember that somewhere in the world there is someone who is both smarter than you and more knowledgeable than you, and has completely opposite political views. This person might even be a friend, a family member, or a future version of yourself. With that in mind, why are you so sure of yourself? Spend less time talking, more time learning.
As for China, yes he did oversee the opening of China with the world, though this can hardly be construed as a left-wing goal when many right-wing Cold warriors supported this because of the opportunities for trade and isolating the Soviet Union after the Sino-Soviet split.
Nixon was not ideological, he was on the whole quite moderate and pragmatic, but still firmly right of center.
...and the genuinely rich people have things like the Channel islands, the Dutch sandwich and whatever needs to be done when the taxman finds your latest gimmick.
Take healthcare for instance. Many Europeans receive, on average, way better healthcare than average Americans, and even when you factor in the taxes they pay for it, it comes at a fraction of the cost. Again: on average, Americans pay a lot more for healthcare than Europeans do, without receiving better service on average. How is that any better?