> Part of my problem with the statistics you link ... You raise an interesting question, to which I don't have a conclusive immediate response. I'll have to di

> Part of my problem with the statistics you link ... You raise an interesting question, to which I don't have a conclusive immediate response. I'll have to dig deeper to really know. The numbers on the US do seem out of line with well-known facts. However, here's another ~30% estimate from Eurostat (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Tax_revenue_statistics http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....). Given the conflicting reports, I can only say that it's theoretically possible that Heritage is right and OECD/Worldbank/Eurostat are jointly wrong. If I had to weigh Heritage's ideology and their likely expertise on European economic statistics, as compared to lined-up answers from OECD/WorldBank/Eurostat I know where I'd bet. Still, the 9% reported for the US does seem troubling. I have a research project for the evening. As for the scale of tax evasion and whether it could plug the hole: it's really, really hard to have an objective opinion here. My inner Greek is saying of course SDOE claims that tax evasion is the main problem. I can't prove that they're wrong, and I don't want to pollute the discussion with personal anecdotes. I'll only add that the SDOE claims don't link to any examinable research. Thank you for an interesting counterpoint :) [Edit: the Eurostat data shows Greece parallel to Spain but way behind France... so at this point I'm going to tentatively retract the comparison to France pending further research, but I think I am still persuaded that Greece has a tax base that commands a significant-enough fraction of GDP for them to manage responsibly]