Hrvatska je brutalno oporezovana

Thus, at least for this group of highly developed countries, with per capita incomes and development levels that are not too different, there is at best no positive relation between public spending and welfare, as measured by the HDI. At worst, there is a negative correlation equal to 0.33 between (higher) spending levels and (poorer) HDI scores as indicated by the line in Figure 11.1. Please recall that a lower number for the HDI index means a higher welfare position. After some level of public spending is reached, which for advanced countries seems to be below 40 percent, more public spending does not seem to improve welfare – at least not as measured by the HDI.

These results are consistent with those reached in the earlier application of the methodology outlined here.
It may be worthwhile to mention that several of the best performers among the advanced countries, which had had very high levels of public spending in the early 1990s, sharply reduced public spending in the following years without apparently suffering any serious consequences with respect to their HDI index (Table 11.3).

The data in Tables 11.1 and 11.2 seem to support the conclusion that public spending of, say, around 35 percent of GDP should be sufficient for the government of a country to satisfy all the genuine objectives that Table 11.3. Spending levels in selected countries (percentage of GDP) Sources: Public spending data from OECD, 2007; OECD Economic Outlook, no. 81 (June 2007); indexes of human development (HDI) from UNDP, 2007. realistically can be expected to be achieved by the spending action of the public sector in a market economy.3 If public spending is efficient and well focused, and if the government focuses its attention on making the market work as efficiently as possible so that many citizens can satisfy most of their needs for some services through the market, an even lower spending percentage should be possible, perhaps one as low as less than 30 percent. Unfortunately, in many countries public spending is neither efficient nor well focused, and governments spend much of their energies in replacing the market because of its presumed “failures” rather than in making the market work better. The result is that higher public spending provides no guarantee that the social welfare and the well-being of the masses, rather than those of smaller selected sectors, are improved by public spending.
Tanzi, Vito (2011-05-16). Government versus Markets: The Changing Economic Role of the State (Kindle Locations 5318-5322). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

Fiscal illusions are “errors .. that the political body uses to reach its objectives” and these errors concern both “revenues” and “public expenditures.”
These illusions can be positive or negative. The positive ones “consist in [making taxpayers] see things that do not exist,” as, for example, in making them believe that a given public expenditure is actually solving a problem or making a genuine positive contribution to public welfare, when in fact it is not.
The negative fiscal illusions occur when taxpayers do not see or feel the total burden of a tax actually paid or of a public debt incurred. By promoting or reinforcing these illusions governments try to strengthen what Puviani calls the “contributive push,” which we could simply call “taxpayers’ compliance.” It is obvious that, when these fiscal illusions exist, the financial public-sector equilibrium, in terms of both level and structure of taxation and expenditure, will be different from the one implied by the (modern) pure theory of public expenditure. There are various ways in which governments create and/or take advantage of fiscal illusions.
– For example, governments will often rely on taxes that are included, or “wrapped up,” to use Dalton’s expression, in the prices of the products because, in this case, the taxpayer is less likely to be aware of the tax that he is paying and will thus not feel the sacrifice. This is the case with value-added taxes, as imposed in Europe, which, unlike the retail taxes imposed by U.S. state governments, are not shown separately; or with taxes that are shifted so that the actual burden falls on taxpayers other than on those meeting the legal obligation.
– Second, governments will not change the basic tax laws too often because taxpayers become particularly insensitive to taxes that have been levied for a long time (“old taxes are good taxes”); on the other hand, minor amendments aimed at benefiting particular groups of taxpayers will be frequent as they will often go unnoticed and unreported. This has been a problem in the United States where the number of pages dealing with income taxes in laws or regulations has grown astronomically over the years. This has made the tax system progressively more complex, thus increasing the cost of compliance (Tanzi, 2010).
– Third, governments will take advantage of shifts in public opinion that reduce the taxpayers’ resistance to new or additional taxes.
– Fourth, governments will avoid relying on just one or two taxes because, up to a certain point, the greater the number of taxes is, the lower is the taxpayers’ resistance to the total tax burden.
– Fifth, governments will collect the tax when and in the way that is least painful to the taxpayer (e.g., with withholding at the source).
– Sixth, governments will rely on borrowing rather than on higher permanent taxes or even on (once-for-all) extraordinary taxes, as public borrowing will not result in an immediate, obvious burden.
– Seventh, governments will rely on deficit financing, financed not by borrowing from the public but from the expansion of the monetary base, as this “inflation tax” will not be seen as an obvious tax by the taxpayers.
– Eighth, governments will introduce taxes, clearly intended to be permanent, as temporary. Finally, governments will introduce new spending programs when the cost of these programs appears low (e.g., unemployment compensation during periods of full employment, social security programs that do not require payments for pensions until much later). The costs of these programs often become clear only much later.
When citizens are subjected to fiscal illusions, they will act in ways that may no longer be regarded as rational in an objective or optimal sense but that are rational from the point of view of the citizens, given the information that they have acquired. Therefore, fiscal illusions change the reality for the citizens so that their behavior may be consistent with their sense of reality that is distorted by the illusions. In addition, the creation of fiscal illusions can be seen as an intentional creation of informational asymmetry on the part of the government. Thus, asymmetry in information is not just a problem for the private market. “Lemons,” a la Akerlof, can also exist in the public sector where it is the government that sells them.
Tanzi, Vito (2011-05-16). Government versus Markets: The Changing Economic Role of the State (Kindle Locations 3496-3508). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

aben wrote:Poreze u načelu treba smanjivati, s izuzetkom poreza na imovinu koji treba uvesti. 

interesantno, bakić podržava porez na nekretnine:(