The worlds poor countries tax companies the most. Brussels, 27/11/2013 (Agence Europe) The high level of corporate tax rates and their complexity are encouraging tax fraud. The State and companies would have everything to gain from trying to simplify tax regimes together and to improve revenue collection. This is one of the conclusions of the detailed study on taxation around the world, published by the World Bank, with the support of Price Water house Coopers. “Paying Taxes 2014” sets out a ranking of 175 countries according to how easy their tax regime is. This is evaluated on the basis of the amount of tax that an average size company must pay and on the basis of the time that it must set aside in order to respect tax legislation. Besides encouraging tax fraud, the complexity of some systemsleads to a great deal of paperwork and produces a negative impact on the Environment. A companys annual tax return thus comprises an average of 35 pages (ranging from 17 pages in Australia to 175 pages in Cameroon) and the amount of printed paper that this represents equates in total to 100,000 trees, the report states - even when taking account of countries where the tax return can be filed electronically. Another observation is that, contrary to common beliefs, it is more the poor countries that have complicated systems and heavier taxation than the rich countries. Furthermore, poor countries tend to make companies pay a greater number of taxes on top of tax on profits. The Nordic countries, on the other hand, have fairly low taxation rates and easy procedures to follow. They come high in the World Banks ranking on the countries with the easiest tax regimes to respect. Among the top 20 are tax havens such as the Maldives and Saint Lucia, big oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, and also less expected countries like Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, New Zealand, Iceland, Denmark and Norway. Among the 20 lowest ranked are Bolivia, Venezuela, China, Algeria, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Colombia, Mauritania, Ukraine and Belarus. Overall, Africa and South America have the highest tax rates, exceeding the average rate by 52%. The lowest average regional rates can be observed in the Middle East where the rate is nearly 20 percentage points below the global average, and in Asia-Pacific. In Europe, it is Luxembourg that puts the lightest tax pressure on companies with a total tax rate of 20.7% (tax on profits, social charges and other charges included). At the other end of the ranking is Italy with a total tax rate of 65.8%. Among the countries with the lowest tax rates are Cyprus (22.5%), Ireland (25.7%), and Denmark (27%). By contrast, companies in France are under strong tax pressure with a rate of 64.7%. France comes just ahead of Italy, preceded by Spain (58.6%) and Belgium (57.5%).
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 22:09:26 +0000
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