Ask HN: First world country with simple tax system? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: First world country with simple tax system?

Is your country's tax system easy to understand ? In particular, for people who work on their own or as entrepreneurs. Just out of curiosity. I'm german, and we produce more than half the tax related literature in the world.

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For true first world Hong Kong and Singapore are an entrepreneurs dream. They are both usually rated as the 1st and 2nd most free places on the planet. Every country in the world should copy their system of taxes, regulations, and bureaucratic environment. Their idea is to just minimize the burden and get out of the way. Just look at the results, they went from complete poverty to two of the richest places on the planet in a matter of decades.

Russia, while not really first world or really safe it has a ridiculous simple tax system designed by Milton Freeman and the guys at UofC. Most of the former Soviet Bloc countries have adopted similar systems. One single flat rate, minimal deductions, how every system should be.

As a side note, when I do business in Asia I usually always go through Hong Kong or Singapore, makes life a whole lot easier. Don't worry as much about getting screwed.

You might want to be more specific about what you mean by "most free" because Singapore isn't very free as in freedom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Singapore

"Freedom" is overrated in this case- I'd feel safer walking down the street in Singapore at 4am than the streets of San Francisco, hell there are streets in San Francisco where I wouldn't feel safe at noon.

"Asia and the rise of convenient authoritarianism" ;-)

That is a surprising aspect of San Francisco. Went there for the first time in October and wandered into basically a ghetto downtown. I'm not sure if US cities are the best comparison. That said, there are a lot of other good cities with strong business communities in the world that are quite safe. It seems a bit disingenuous to suggest the trade-off is between authoritarian government and safety.

Hong Kong tax calculator: http://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/ese/st_comp_2011_12_b/stcfrm.htm

Nice, thx. Looks pretty easy (not sure how complicated or detailled the verificion of the individual points would be, though).

In Hong Kong, it's basically 16% income tax. No sales tax. No capital gains tax. There's little you can deduct.

It's my understanding that most of the governments money comes from, what is essentially, property tax (I think technically you can't own land in hong kong and it's sorta rented out by the government, but I think the more I'm typing the further away from the truth I'm getting).

I've read Estonia has a pretty simple tax system.

Interesting - bit close to Russia, though ;-)

Slovakia has a 19% flat tax.

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