9 ms·

It is probably too much to hope for that the exfiltrated data includes tax returns for the country's kleptocratic elite. Bulgaria has the worst corruption in th

by atdt 7y ago

It is probably too much to hope for that the exfiltrated data includes tax returns for the country's kleptocratic elite. Bulgaria has the worst corruption in the European Union. Seeing just how little tax is paid by the rich could start a movement for change. Then again, it may simply be seen as a sad confirmation of what everybody knows.

peshooo 7y ago
Maybe you are not from Bulgaria. The taxes are pretty low - 10% on pretty much everything - capital gains, on your salary, etc. So there is not much tax evasion. But there are worse issues here, for example: corruption, stealing of European and government funds, oligarchic control of the power, etc.
- mariusmg 7y ago
  >But there are worse issues here, for example: corruption, stealing of European and government funds, oligarchic control of the power, etc. Ah, the Eastern Europe usual problems...
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    I'm from Eastern Europe and lived in quite a few western European countries and believe me, politicians here are corrupt to the bone as well, just that the people enjoy a higher standard of living and have more disposable income so they're not too bothered by the constant theft going on in the politics high above.
- kartan 7y ago
  Bulgaria underground economy was the highest of the EU27. Is it possible that low/high taxes has no correlation with tax evasion? A good tax office, effective laws and public awareness seems more important than how high or low are taxes. I only found data from 2012: http://jalac.kyxar.fr/ANG/ECONOIR11.html http://jalac.kyxar.fr/ANG/ECONOIR11.html
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    IMO the statistics in your link are severely wrong and don't reflect the real-world situation. I live in Austria and the underground economy here is way WAY bigger than 8.2%. Most small restaurants/bars/cafes here are cash only and rarely(never) hand out receipts. Also, tips are a large source of income for workers in the service industry and many are paid under the table.
    - gruez 7y ago
      >I live in Austria [...] >Also, tips are a large source of income for workers in the service industry and many are paid under the table. I thought tip culture isn't really a thing in Europe?
      - drcross 7y ago
        Generally you tip 10-15% for a proper sit down meal, that's all.
        StavrosK 7y ago
        In Greece, you tip 1 or 2 euros. Maybe 5 if the bill is over 100 euros or something like that.
        danielscrubs 7y ago
        Generally it differs from country to country, it’s intellectually lazy to say these things about Europe/Americans/Africa.
      - phs318u 7y ago
        When baristas are paid as little as €3/hr (post-crisis Greece), tips are a survival requisite.
  - dmix 7y ago
    How could tax evasion not be correlated to the rate? It’s expensive to hide tax money, especially when you can’t use it for investments. The higher the rates the more it’s worth the risk and difficult work it takes to hide it from the gov. Which typically involves two or three parties (the person paying you without the paper trail, you trying to hide it, and the bank or organization where you plan to hide it in).
- alt_f4 7y ago
  > The taxes are pretty low - 10% on pretty much everything And about 20% on national insurance. And 20% VAT. Not that low.
galangalalgol 7y ago
is it that much worse than in the US? my city of ~800k is just finding out our senator and relations found a way to get $500M o federal funds to dramatically increase the value of the land they and their friends bought shortly before the project was started. sadly with as much detail as I provided you probably still can't be sure which city I'm talking about because it happens everywhere. Regulatory capture in the communication, medical, defense, and banking industries is obvious and unchallenged. How bad is Bulgaria?
- zaro 7y ago
  Exactly! The biggest differences between developed countries and the developing one is not IMO how much regulatory capture and corruption, its only in the scale. And in the developed counties the scale is often so big, its too big to fail.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  I would say that the only difference is due process But having operated in many “corrupt countries” now, I would say that the only difference is due process that you respect From our perspective we will never respect how Bulgaria cronyism works, and Bulgarians will never respect how American cronyism works We’ll call ours due process and imagine Bulgarians are sliding money under tables to get anything done, and they’ll flat out call the outcomes of our system corruption as well (But there are a lot of favors happening outside of the legal framework too)
- Retric 7y ago
  The difference is people are indirectly benefiting in developed countries so actual infrastructure gets built with government funds. In developing nations frequently so much is directly skimmed that the project never does whatever it was supposed to do. It’s the difference between inefficiency and direct theft.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Oh wee lamb. Americans just have no idea about the scale of corruption in other countries. The kind of thing you mentioned has always existed in America. I was just reading an article about how they constructed MD450 in Maryland in the 1920s (a highway from DC to Annapolis). There was already a perfectly good mostly concrete paved road between DC and Annapolis (MD214/Central Avenue) at the time, a few miles south of the intended route for MD450. But some of the politicians involved owned land in the northern part of the affected counties, and insisted that a duplicative northern route be built. In the end the highway was obsolete almost soon as it was built, and the John Hansen Highway (now US50) was constructed to interstate freeway standards just a couple of decades later. At the end of the day, this sort of thing is bad but not fatal. It's usually a matter of politicians finding some benefit in a project or policy that can be justified for objective reasons. (E.g. whatever you think about our communications policies, for example, they're supported by a large amount of academic research, and served as the model for regulatory reforms in Europe in the 1990s and 2000s.) The corruption outside of places like the US is of a completely different sort. It's straight up stealing and bribery. Worse, it infects larger segments of the society and government. At the end of the day, it's not really a big deal if a highway is redundantly built a few miles north of an existing one. But lower-level government workers asking for bribes to do their jobs, widespread tax evasion among ordinary people--that stuff isn't just wasteful, it's fatal to the ability of the country to function. It's basic math--there's relatively few elite, and some corruption at the top doesn't add up to much in terms of the overall economy. But when corruption trickles down to the middle class, it's infected the bulk of your economy.

by atdt 7y ago

peshooo 7y ago

Maybe you are not from Bulgaria. The taxes are pretty low - 10% on pretty much everything - capital gains, on your salary, etc. So there is not much tax evasion. But there are worse issues here, for example: corruption, stealing of European and government funds, oligarchic control of the power, etc.

mariusmg 7y ago
>But there are worse issues here, for example: corruption, stealing of European and government funds, oligarchic control of the power, etc. Ah, the Eastern Europe usual problems...
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  I'm from Eastern Europe and lived in quite a few western European countries and believe me, politicians here are corrupt to the bone as well, just that the people enjoy a higher standard of living and have more disposable income so they're not too bothered by the constant theft going on in the politics high above.
kartan 7y ago
Bulgaria underground economy was the highest of the EU27. Is it possible that low/high taxes has no correlation with tax evasion? A good tax office, effective laws and public awareness seems more important than how high or low are taxes. I only found data from 2012: http://jalac.kyxar.fr/ANG/ECONOIR11.html http://jalac.kyxar.fr/ANG/ECONOIR11.html
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  IMO the statistics in your link are severely wrong and don't reflect the real-world situation. I live in Austria and the underground economy here is way WAY bigger than 8.2%. Most small restaurants/bars/cafes here are cash only and rarely(never) hand out receipts. Also, tips are a large source of income for workers in the service industry and many are paid under the table.
  - gruez 7y ago
    >I live in Austria [...] >Also, tips are a large source of income for workers in the service industry and many are paid under the table. I thought tip culture isn't really a thing in Europe?
    - drcross 7y ago
      Generally you tip 10-15% for a proper sit down meal, that's all.
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        In Greece, you tip 1 or 2 euros. Maybe 5 if the bill is over 100 euros or something like that.
      - danielscrubs 7y ago
        Generally it differs from country to country, it’s intellectually lazy to say these things about Europe/Americans/Africa.
    - phs318u 7y ago
      When baristas are paid as little as €3/hr (post-crisis Greece), tips are a survival requisite.
- dmix 7y ago
  How could tax evasion not be correlated to the rate? It’s expensive to hide tax money, especially when you can’t use it for investments. The higher the rates the more it’s worth the risk and difficult work it takes to hide it from the gov. Which typically involves two or three parties (the person paying you without the paper trail, you trying to hide it, and the bank or organization where you plan to hide it in).
alt_f4 7y ago
> The taxes are pretty low - 10% on pretty much everything And about 20% on national insurance. And 20% VAT. Not that low.

galangalalgol 7y ago

is it that much worse than in the US? my city of ~800k is just finding out our senator and relations found a way to get $500M o federal funds to dramatically increase the value of the land they and their friends bought shortly before the project was started. sadly with as much detail as I provided you probably still can't be sure which city I'm talking about because it happens everywhere. Regulatory capture in the communication, medical, defense, and banking industries is obvious and unchallenged. How bad is Bulgaria?

zaro 7y ago
Exactly! The biggest differences between developed countries and the developing one is not IMO how much regulatory capture and corruption, its only in the scale. And in the developed counties the scale is often so big, its too big to fail.
rolltiide 7y ago
I would say that the only difference is due process But having operated in many “corrupt countries” now, I would say that the only difference is due process that you respect From our perspective we will never respect how Bulgaria cronyism works, and Bulgarians will never respect how American cronyism works We’ll call ours due process and imagine Bulgarians are sliding money under tables to get anything done, and they’ll flat out call the outcomes of our system corruption as well (But there are a lot of favors happening outside of the legal framework too)
Retric 7y ago
The difference is people are indirectly benefiting in developed countries so actual infrastructure gets built with government funds. In developing nations frequently so much is directly skimmed that the project never does whatever it was supposed to do. It’s the difference between inefficiency and direct theft.
rayiner 7y ago
Oh wee lamb. Americans just have no idea about the scale of corruption in other countries. The kind of thing you mentioned has always existed in America. I was just reading an article about how they constructed MD450 in Maryland in the 1920s (a highway from DC to Annapolis). There was already a perfectly good mostly concrete paved road between DC and Annapolis (MD214/Central Avenue) at the time, a few miles south of the intended route for MD450. But some of the politicians involved owned land in the northern part of the affected counties, and insisted that a duplicative northern route be built. In the end the highway was obsolete almost soon as it was built, and the John Hansen Highway (now US50) was constructed to interstate freeway standards just a couple of decades later. At the end of the day, this sort of thing is bad but not fatal. It's usually a matter of politicians finding some benefit in a project or policy that can be justified for objective reasons. (E.g. whatever you think about our communications policies, for example, they're supported by a large amount of academic research, and served as the model for regulatory reforms in Europe in the 1990s and 2000s.) The corruption outside of places like the US is of a completely different sort. It's straight up stealing and bribery. Worse, it infects larger segments of the society and government. At the end of the day, it's not really a big deal if a highway is redundantly built a few miles north of an existing one. But lower-level government workers asking for bribes to do their jobs, widespread tax evasion among ordinary people--that stuff isn't just wasteful, it's fatal to the ability of the country to function. It's basic math--there's relatively few elite, and some corruption at the top doesn't add up to much in terms of the overall economy. But when corruption trickles down to the middle class, it's infected the bulk of your economy.