Quote Originally Posted by Surferbeetle View Post
List of countries by tax revenue as percentage of GDP, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...centage_of_GDP
Such lists are rarely a good diea, for comparison is difficult.

For example, germany has multiple parafisci (social insurances) and the large churches have treaties which allow them to piggyback onthe tax system (you can opt oput, but then they stop beign ncie to you when you want something from 'your' church, no matter "christening is forever" or not).

Afaik U.S. social insurance revenues would appear in such a statistic, but would my two examples appear? Probably not. Yet, the social insurance spending is under control of the legislative, while church budgets are not. So should the latter apepar in such a statistic or not when you're itnerested in the share of the government in the economy? Then again, taxation causes distortion - which means you'd need them included for a proper statistical analysis.


In the end, even seemingly simple statistics oftene nd up beign no good for laymen.