THE ARAB PEOPLE WILL NOT HAVE FREEDOM UNTIL THEY PAY FOR IT:

Why taxes are low in the Middle East: High taxes help to build an effective state. That many Middle Eastern countries don't have them tells us much (Brian Whitaker, 8/24/10, guardian.co.uk)

Low taxes, and the erratic collection of them, are common features of life in most of the Middle East. Among the Arab oil producers, for example, taxation accounted for only 5% of gross domestic product in 2002, rising to 17% in the non-oil countries – which is still very low compared with Germany (39%), Italy (41%) and Britain (37%).

The main reason, of course, is that many of them are rentier economies where the government has sources of income other than taxes. Oil is the classic example but there are others: Egypt benefits in a similar way from the Suez canal and several of the poorer Arab countries receive substantial rent in the form of foreign aid. Overall, slightly less than 20% of Arab governments' revenue comes from taxes.

Taxation is an often-overlooked factor in the internal politics of the Middle East: it helps to explain why undemocratic regimes stay in power for so long.

No taxation, no representation.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 24, 2010 5:28 AM