Tax rate for Italians one of world’s highest
One of the key events on which the United States is founded is the historical act of citizens refusing to pay their taxes — celebrated by patriots as the Boston Tea Party. So it puzzles me a bit when I hear some of the descendants of these same brave revolutionaries routinely jeer at Italy as a place where people don’t pay their taxes.
One, the blanket condemnation isn’t true. Many Italians do pay their taxes. But for those who don’t, a chart published in the Globe and Mail last Friday offers some justification for the tax-dodging. It shows Italians being taxed at the third highest rate in the developed world (“Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP in the developed world” July 29, 2011).
Tax rates in the US, in contrast, are among the lowest, according to the chart, with the country ranking third from the bottom.
See chart here. (Saw link to this article on Informed Comment here).
