No, actually, as I explained, the rankings I cite from Table A3.1 reflect total tax costs — including compliance costs in addition to the tax itself, but not compliance cost alone. Yes, the tax code is in serious need of reform — that’s the point. Yes, we have a better business climate overall compared with many places, but this discussion was/is about taxes. And they’re too high any way you slice it.

That analysis is not about how much tax is paid, but how easy or hard it is to pay taxes. As everyone knows, the US tax system is screwed up, and it’s no wonder it comes in 53rd.

However, there are other factors besides taxes that businesses take into account when they start a business. The World Bank also analyses several factors in its Ease of Doing Business rankings: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

Despite coming in 53rd in the ease of paying taxes, which us taken into account, the US comes in 7th overall.

1st Singapore
2nd New Zealand
3rd Denmark
4th South Korea
5th Hong Kong
6th UK
7th US
8th Sweden
9th Norway
10th Finland
13th Australia
14th Canada
15th Germany
17th Ireland
25th Poland

It’s not as bad in the US as you make out.

What people in the US (and New Zealand) ran from was communism, not socialism. There is a difference. Most of northern Europe has socialist governments and are quite successful. The countries that are dragging Europe down are those in southern Europe. And just because I’m in the mood to throw a fly in the ointment, they’re also the most religious ones.

I’m not sure it’s helpful to accuse others of having been indoctrinated. Millions of Americans know about socialism not because they’ve been indoctrinated, but because they, or their grandparents or someone they love, fled here to escape some form of socialist tyranny somewhere in the world. Indeed, everybody comes to America to get away from an oppressive ruling class of one description or another. So I have to say your seeming faith in a technocratic elite is not something many Americans would relate to.

Libertarians and many others actually would agree with you that we should just go ahead and label any unnecessary public spending as socialism, starting with the post office. Far be it from me to argue otherwise. So, yes, the USA already is burdened by some misguided socialistic schemes that we desperately need to modernize and privatize.

Whatever you call it, political meddling in the economy helps nobody but the politically connected. The only way to achieve higher living standards for everybody in the long run is for investors to risk their own resources to invent smarter, faster, cheaper ways to meet people’s needs.

For example, Canada has significantly reduced business taxes (from about 47.5% in 2004 to the current 21.1%) and now ranks 9th lowest out of 189 economies. By contrast the USA has seen no federal corporate tax reform in 30 years and now ranks 53rd from the lowest with a 43.9% effective business tax. (This is for domestic firms. It’s even worse for multinational firms, since the USA is the only G7 country without a territorial tax system.)

In considering effective business tax burdens, it’s not meaningful to compare averages across industries and countries, for two reasons: One, tax rules regarding depreciation and other deductions vary by country and impact different industries very differently; and two, a real-world investment decision is made with respect to one or more specific locations, not based on an average. Accordingly, the World Bank study runs the numbers country by country using a detailed hypothetical test case. In this process, it considers all relevant business taxes at all levels of government, as well as the actual compliance costs associated with paying these taxes.

Here are selected rankings, from lowest tax burden to highest:

Hong Kong – 4th
Singapore – 5th
Ireland – 6th
Canada – 9th
Denmark – 12th
Norway – 14th
United Kingdom – 15th
Finland – 17th
Switzerland – 19th
South Africa – 20th
New Zealand – 22nd
Bahamas – 24th
Korea – 29th
Australia – 42nd
USA – 53rd

http://www.doingbusiness.org/reports/thematic-reports/paying-taxes

Corruption is most common where the legal system is weak and government is unfair, not necessarily where it dominates. While it’s true that there was major corruption in places like the Soviet countries, that has not improved since the fall of communism. (I am not, of course, defending communism.) If you look around the world, it is countries that have the greatest inequality that have the most corruption – it is rife throughout Africa for example. That is because in many places government has insufficient control.

New Zealand regularly tops the list of countries perceived as being least corrupt in the world. We also have, by world standards, a reasonably fair society. (That’s not to say we couldn’t make quite a few improvements, because we could.) There are two big differences between NZ and the US:
1. Everyone has access to free, quality healthcare. No-one has to worry that an illness or injury will see them living on the streets.
2. Schools are funded in such a way that those in the most need get the most money. We don’t have the disgusting US system where schools are funded by property taxes so poor areas get crap schools and wealthy ones get the best. A decent education is available to all. Also, all our universities are good ones, and although students have to borrow to attend if they don’t have the money, the loan rates are low and available to anyone.

The US is already a socialist country – that’s what Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are: socialism. Like most people in the US, you have been indoctrinated to believe that the only form of socialism is that practiced in the Soviet Union, Cuba, or Venezuela. Providing a free education to your children is socialism, and it is good for the country. It is good for business to have a larger pool of educated workers to choose from. More educated people are less likely to commit crime, so it saves money long-term. Whenever a new road is proposed by the government, part of the cost-benefit analysis is how that will benefit business, because it obviously does to some extent and that can be measured.

Even a little thing like cochlear implants and other hearing interventions. The evidence is that a majority of those in prison are functionally illiterate and oftentimes the reason for that is that they simply couldn’t hear the teacher properly. If hearing difficulties are picked up early and treated, the whole future of that child can be changed and long-term it saves the country money re police/justice etc and that person becomes a contributing member of society instead. That is socialism.

There is a limit to how much a government can do, and it has to make choices. The argument is not whether or not to have socialism, the argument is how much. When it’s done right, socialism improves the lives of everyone in society.

And a government, chose by the people, are the best ones to decide what the priorities should be. They must collect data though, and their decisions should be made based on data and evidence, not because they’ve been swayed by a lobbyist. If government has proper processes in place to decide what the priorities are then in theory corruption doesn’t get a look in because too many people have to be bribed to make a decision go the wrong way.

The trust fund babies Ken admires sure have odd timing, considering that New Yorkers just got handed an object lesson in the supposed decency of socialism. The immediate past leaders of both houses of the legislature, one from each political party, currently await incarceration following convictions less than three months ago, within two weeks of each other, on separate corruption charges. (You have to wonder how much more decency New Yorkers can take!)

This is not a coincidence. Graft increases in direct proportion to opportunities for graft. Opportunities for graft increase in direct proportion to resources under political control. If economics is just common sense, common sense suffices to tell you that putting resources in the hands of politicians, bureaucrats and social engineers — beyond the minimum necessary to preserve law and order — is the most unproductive thing you can imagine.

As one who sees the State of New York help itself to a super-sized slice of my own hard-earned bread, let me assure you that these jokers already have at their disposal more than ample resources to pave every street and highway in the known universe twice a week, and inspect every milk cow on the planet twice an hour.

If these letter-writing fat cats are so desperate to give even more to the cause of good old-fashioned graft, nobody’s stopping them. They can simply write out checks to the treasury in any amounts that flatter their inflated egos, and kindly shut up already.

Socialism is well and good inside a monastery or commune. But there is nothing decent about coerced socialism. It is at best irrational and at worst monstrous.

Nice to see some rich people who understand that they benefit from “socialism” too.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/21/new-yorks-millionaires-governor-cuomo-raise-our-taxes-please

Yes, thank goodness. And it’s frustrating that so many in the US see socialism and communism as the same thing too. Any decent person wants a certain level of socialism in their country – it’s how much that should be the argument. It’s true that if it’s done wrong it can mess up a country’s economy and the fix is then often worse than the disease (I’m thinking of Thatcherism).

All these calls for a flat tax from the US right worry me a lot. So much of the Republican base thinks they’re a good idea. If/when they don’t get implemented those people will continue to be extremely disaffected and that’s dangerous. It’s one of the main reasons I think bad as Trump is, Cruz would be worse.

And the US government as a whole needs to make a long-term effort to get their IRS viewed differently. I remember when everyone hated the IRD here. People were committing suicide because of the way they were treated – it was a disgrace. It’s taken a long time, but things are much better now. Of course, it helps that our tax code has been simplified so much by successive governments. The US one is completely screwed.

Sure, but fortunately very few seriously advise communism as a means of addressing inequality these days. That is not only unnecessary, but historically ineffective.