Sat, 4 May 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
Not wanting to join in this bashing of taxes--my views are clear, as evidenced in the title of this thread--but I have to point out that I paid approximately 60% of everything I made last year to the tax collectors! This counts the Federal income tax (about 32%), the California income tax (about 11%), the "self-employment tax" (FICA) for some consulting I did (15%), property tax on my old residence ($2200), property tax on my new residence ($4200), sales tax on purchases (8.25%), gasoline taxes (about 30-40 cents per gallon), a special tax on my Ford Explorer ($300), and probably some miscellaneous other taxes I have neglected.
Here in Estonia there was a proposal made in the parliament to remove taxation on corporate income (right now there is a proportional corporate income tax of 26%), which should bring more foreign investments into Estonia and also make Estonian economy develop faster. Estonia I think is one of few countries where there is a possibility of accepting this kind of law. Of course European countries, USA and different international financial organisations are very against this kind of law. This law would apply both to companies and to self-employed private persons (farmers for example). Other main taxes in Estonia are 26% proportional income tax for private persons and 18% sales tax. There is also 33% tax on salaries paid which includes social security and medical insurance. Of course the government taxation is not working very effectively and a big percentage of private persons and companies pay much less than what they are supposed to. I believe this is common to many young Eastern and Central European countries. Off-shore companies are also popular, including Delaware, where people as I understand just do not pay the taxes they are supposed to. Also many people use one-time off-shore corporations for just one bigger business deal. Juri Kaljundi jk@stallion.ee AS Stallion