I am Scandinavian, or more precisely Norwegian.
GnSx:
Anyone else notice that the two countries they berate for having he lowest tax rates (the US and Japan) happen to also be just awash in money? Covered in dollars bills? Yen out the yin-yang? Just happen to be the two biggest economies in the world, based on GDP?
Jason:
Just because two of the countries with lowest taxes are, by any realistic standards, the most successful, means nothing.
Based on GDP per capita, the US is number 8 and Japan number 14. The Scandinavian countries are found in 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 11th place. If GDP is a realistic standard, Norway is roughly 50% more successful than the US ($42,000 per person in the US compared to $64,000 in Norway).
That said, those Canadian authours are wrong. Scandinavians are not rich because we pay a lot of tax. If anything, we pay a lot of tax because we can afford to. I pay more tax than the average American, but at the end of the day I still have more cash in my pocket after tax. Personally I think I pay too much tax, but hey, that's what you get when you have a political system where half the voters are below average intelligent...
I'm too lazy to look for any statistics, but I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of countries out there with considerably lower tax rates than the US, but I doubt you would want to live there. To be a first world country, you need a certain level of infrastructure and stable government. For capitalism to be successful, you need stability and predictability. Minimum government interference is good - up to a point. There is a reason Somalia, which has no government at all, is not the richest country in the world.
Infrastructure and a stable governments cost money. Where to draw the line with regard to tax levels is a political question. Do you want roads? A military? Are you willing to pay for it?
I do find it slightly amusing when most of the posts above seem to imply that a tax rate of 30ish per cent is perfectly reasonable while a tax rate of 40ish per cent is the work of Satan (or Stalin or whatever, but I'm repeating myself). Does that make Americans only 28% Stalinist, while I'm 41% Stalinist? At what level should you be burned at the stake, 33 per cent?
Know what I would like to try? Flat tax. I think they're trying it in Estonia. Everyone pays the same percentage, regardless of income level. No deductions, no write-offs, minimal bureaucracy. If done properly, that would probably make the whole process so much more efficient that tax rates could be cut considerably.
Art:
Finland does not have a large influx of uneducated, unhealthy, unskilled people.
carebear:
Homogenous societies with low levels of illiterate, uneducated, unskilled, unassimilated immigrants will always score higher.
Aren't you guys paying attention? In 3 years, 8 months and 5 days, all of Europe, Scandinavia included, will be completely taken over by Muslems because we are letting in wave after wave of Middle Eastern terrorist immigrants. And we will deserve our fate, because we are all spineless yellow-bellied baby-eating Marxists anyway. I know it's true, because I read it on the Interweb, in a American sub section of Al Gore's greatest invention.