How do countries with little or no tax run itself?

Jeremy Sproket

Look at this table, some counties, Kuwait for example have 0% tax across the board. Corporate, income tax (upper and lower) sales tax etc. are all nil.

Some parts of Europe take the piss with tax rates.

I agree some taxation is needed to run the country (nurses, doctors, public transport drivers, teachers - the latter of whom earn too much) all need to be paid. How does the likes of Kuwait pay such workers? Or are all places privatised, even schools and those who can't afford it are simply left out?

What about prisons? Surely they have prisons there?

Roads? Airports? Infrastructure? Electricity?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

Trigger Happy

Kuwait is sitting on a big lake of oil that they sell.

Natural resources or taxes on other things like banking etc.

Pixel Eater

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058212251/how-do-countries-with-little-or-no-tax-run-itself

Pretty obvious; they have oil. They are taking a natural resource owned by the state and selling it to create wealth in lieu of tax.

Gregor Samsa

Any country with very low or non-existent tax revenue is funding itself though a Government monopoly on some resource. Oil for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, etc., off-shore company registration fees for the British Virgin Islands, "any article of whatsoever nature made, manufactured, prepared for sale or produced by any of the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island" for - you guessed it - the Pitcairn Islands.

Ten of Swords

Their climate is very favorable to money trees, they farm them there.

banie01

Using Kuwait as an exemplar of low tax economy, wondering just how they pay for things? And then missing the obvious elephant in the room of their resource wealth 🤦‍♂️

Many resource rich countries operate on this particular model. It's also a short term strategy that the Arab oil states are moving away from. The diversification of UAE, Kuwait and others income into sovereign wealth funds and investments is well underway.

There are huge risks with reliance upon petro-dollar income or any other source of income of a monopolistic type.

Brazil in the 19th Century was thriving on the back of being the sole 😉 source of industrial rubber in the world. Some rubber plants smuggled out to Kew gardens quickly destroyed that market.

Similarly even for products where there is still huge demand? Sanctions can bite hard. Look at Venezuela, it's enormous oil reserves and it's near zero utility to them in a heavily sanctioned market.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058212251/how-do-countries-with-little-or-no-tax-run-itself

they sell state oil

riclad

some countrys rely on vat , tax on services, property tax, not income tax, america needs taxs to pay for the army,navy, and infrastructure .only small countrys can do this or a country with income from oil ,gas reserves .also they attract rich residents who employ local people and buy property.they have some plan for the future, as in 20-30 years time the oil will run out.it costs money to have a civil service, hospitals, doctors , police are expensive to keep going ,you also need border control, airports etc i don,t think theres a country that has zero taxs .

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117993863#Comment_117993863

How about Venezuela?

Jeremy Sproket

What would happen (theoretically) if we found vast quantities of oil in our territorial waters akin to what Kuwait would have?

Would we harvest it? Would certain political parties oppose it?

Would we see a drop in income related taxes or would certain greedy cohorts (teachers for example) simply demand more and more from state coffers with no increase in work?

Trigger Happy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117994976#Comment_117994976

No, they are sitting on a different lake of oil.

corner of hells

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117994978#Comment_117994978

Bastard teachers , they probably want to be paid in oil.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117995487#Comment_117995487

Finally, an answer that gets to the heart of the matter.

The rest of government spending is probably paid out to Irish fellas masquerading as Swedish women.

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117995473#Comment_117995473

Ah OK.

*themselves

wandererz

In some countries in the middle east they have so much oil income that taxes are not required (petrol there cost about 3 cents a liter). They simply sell it on to us poor fecks who are prepared to pay for it.

This may have changed over the years and perhaps i am incorrect but this is what i was told.

There was a time when, if you where a natural born Kuwaiti, there was the equivalent of a miilion dollars placed in trust for you when you where born (i doubt for the women though).

Perhaps that is why Kuwaities (natural born) are so wealthy.

There may be no tax on the usual stuff as we know it, because of the enormous amount of oil wealth, but they do get a small amount back via other taxes.

Dubai for example recently started charging VAT.

Admittedly, they do not have oil wealth but, they have managed very well so far.

Venezuela.... well they just screwed things up. They could have been the entire middle east but just don't have their heads screwed on properly.

With Venezuela, it's more like every subsequent leader wants to be an Emir/Sultan/Sheik etc. and go up through the ranks to get there.

Whereas in the Middle East, they exist already and they dont have to go through power struggles. They have a birthright and because of that they rule the countries with absolute power.

Montage of Feck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117995487#Comment_117995487

We have turf, pay them in turf!

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117993863#Comment_117993863

Imagine if Ireland was sitting on something similar...

Oh wait.

Mad_maxx

While the huge oil revenues are a major factor , nothing approaching a welfare state is another

Those countries never had a culture of universal basic human rights

blackbox

Monaco has no oil reserves, but no income tax.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117996759#Comment_117996759

We are not , do not even try to imply we do. The strike rate here is really poor.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117999003#Comment_117999003

http://www.shelltosea.com/content/gas-oil-robbery

Four hundred and twenty BILLION.

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998068#Comment_117998068

Same with the Caymen Islands, they just have massive sales tax on everything.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117999874#Comment_117999874

You should be More careful where you get your information from.

scottygee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117996759#Comment_117996759

I don't know why I laughed so hard at this. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117999874#Comment_117999874

Thanks be to "insert deity here " that they've decided to leave it in the ground so , while oil and gas are still relatively cheap at the well - and we have a relatively crap license regieme that means the oil companies don't really need to pay the state for the value of the reserves ...

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117994978#Comment_117994978

Yes, teachers are well known for causing calamitous recessions. Yes.

From the Japanese economic bubble popping to the Dutch resource disease, it woz the teachers wot dun it.

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118001600#Comment_118001600

Should we get the pitch forks and flaming torches - or it a bit too soon -

spurious

Bloody teachers, didn't even teach the OP what the main resource in the Middle East is.

ohnonotgmail

I refuse to believe that the OP was genuine when they asked the question in the OP.

bnt

The UAE has no income tax, but they do charge lots of fees for things. For example, in Dubai (fee list) you pay 5% of your rent to the government as a housing fee. There are "knowledge fees" and "innovation fees" on every transaction for government services. Plus road tolls, garbage collection fees, etc.