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North Korea has surprisingly low tax rates for a communist country. I suppose if all the companies are owned by the state, they can just decrease salaries inste

North Korea has surprisingly low tax rates for a communist country. I suppose if all the companies are owned by the state, they can just decrease salaries instead.

greatemployee 10y ago
And (perhaps more reliably?) Vietnam... Like others have said, I'm skeptical as to how close these numbers are to reality.
matt4077 10y ago
Today's North Korea doesn't have much to do with communism. It's a monarchy or a hereditary dictatorship or "Fascism meets Micromanagement". The difference is mostly in the distribution of power: while the individual is highly restricted in both systems, in communism it's your peers that are supposed to make your life miserable, not the supreme leader. It's even more pronounced with Russia and China (and nowadays Turkey, with Hungarian aspirations to join the club): Fiercely capitalistic economies* in an almost complete absence of other civil liberties. For NK, I doubt that a comparison makes any sense, considering how far removed it is from other countries' societies. How do you account for widespread forced labor? What's the real value of any income they get if part of it is in quotas for food, and most prices are subject to change at a moments notice when PJ thinks it's a good idea or toilet paper reserves are running dry? *as long as it doesn't come into contact with political realm, and sometimes obscured by an additional kleptocratic layer.
dogma1138 10y ago
(Direct) Taxes in Communist countries levied on the individuals were actually pretty low (to nonexistent), historically liberalism and socialism were against taxation, especially progressive tax system, as taxing labor was deemed immoral. In the USSR there was only a 13% income tax (and that's the highest it got post glasnost, it was lower before that) and it was a flat tax that was intended to finance pension contribution, so this was more of an SSC than a modern income tax. Since the state controlled most of the means of generating capital and manufacturing (and hence profited directly from any goods they produced), direct taxation was unnecessary direct taxes were less than 10% of the government revenue of the USSR and most other soviet/communist states. There were high taxes levied on some imports, as well as on foreign corporations there were also often export taxes on goods that were set for export that were not directly produced by state owned enterprises.

North Korea has surprisingly low tax rates for a communist country. I suppose if all the companies are owned by the state, they can just decrease salaries instead.

greatemployee 10y ago

And (perhaps more reliably?) Vietnam... Like others have said, I'm skeptical as to how close these numbers are to reality.

matt4077 10y ago

Today's North Korea doesn't have much to do with communism. It's a monarchy or a hereditary dictatorship or "Fascism meets Micromanagement". The difference is mostly in the distribution of power: while the individual is highly restricted in both systems, in communism it's your peers that are supposed to make your life miserable, not the supreme leader. It's even more pronounced with Russia and China (and nowadays Turkey, with Hungarian aspirations to join the club): Fiercely capitalistic economies* in an almost complete absence of other civil liberties. For NK, I doubt that a comparison makes any sense, considering how far removed it is from other countries' societies. How do you account for widespread forced labor? What's the real value of any income they get if part of it is in quotas for food, and most prices are subject to change at a moments notice when PJ thinks it's a good idea or toilet paper reserves are running dry? *as long as it doesn't come into contact with political realm, and sometimes obscured by an additional kleptocratic layer.

dogma1138 10y ago

(Direct) Taxes in Communist countries levied on the individuals were actually pretty low (to nonexistent), historically liberalism and socialism were against taxation, especially progressive tax system, as taxing labor was deemed immoral. In the USSR there was only a 13% income tax (and that's the highest it got post glasnost, it was lower before that) and it was a flat tax that was intended to finance pension contribution, so this was more of an SSC than a modern income tax. Since the state controlled most of the means of generating capital and manufacturing (and hence profited directly from any goods they produced), direct taxation was unnecessary direct taxes were less than 10% of the government revenue of the USSR and most other soviet/communist states. There were high taxes levied on some imports, as well as on foreign corporations there were also often export taxes on goods that were set for export that were not directly produced by state owned enterprises.