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Tekst je preuzet sa stranice Eclectica.

EUROSTAT je upravo izdao analizu Oporezovanje u EU članicama.

1. Podaci su sami po sebi zanimljivi, ali je puno zanimljivije gledati ih u kontekstu. Kao što i npr. Velimir Šonje puno puta pisao, oporezivanje se treba gledati u kontekstu bogatstva država: bogatije države mogu više oporezovati. Mnogi naši anti-tržišni fundamentalisti, ili naprosto neobrazovani ljudi, kao ‘dokaz’ da porezi u Hrvatskoj nisu veliki navode primjer npr. Švedske, što je baš besmisleno.

Uparimo li poreze kao udjel u BDP (vertikalna os) s BDP per capita izraženo u % od prosjeka u EU (tzv. PPS) dobijamo sljedeći grafikon:

 

Desna crna točka je Luksemburg, koji je vrlo posebna priča i zbog svog (apsurdno) visokog BDP jasni outlier koji nema veze s ostatkom EU, pa ćemo nastaviti analizu bez njega.

Nakon toga dobijamo ovakvu sliku. Crveno je Hrvatska, a dozvolite mi da u svrhu daljnje analize radi jasnoće izbacim još i Irsku (zelena oznaka skroz desno), time svakako pogodujem (a ne štetim) Hrvatskoj jer je irsko oporezivanje manje, pa će Hrvatska time samo izgledati bolje:
 

Tada dobijam ovakvu sliku. U njoj se jasno vidi korelacija između oporezivanja kao % BDP i bogatstva zemlje:

Kao što vidimo, u grubo imamo dvije grupe zemalja: bogate i siromašne, i porezni kapacitet jednih nije nikako usporediv s drugima. U biti negdje između su mediteranske zemlje (izuzev Hrvatske): Francuska, Italija, Španjolska, Portugal, Malta, Cipar.

Pogledajmo sada kako Hrvatska stoji u usporedbi samo s njoj usporedivim zemljama, koje su nam konkurencija u investicijama i na tržištu rada:

 

2. Međutim, ovo je tek početak priče! Naime, Hrvatska ima jednu posebnost, a to je obavezna štednja u drugom mirovinskom stupu koja trenutno funkcionira kao kvazi-porez (potpuno suprotno onome kako je zamišljeno), naime velika većina se usmjeruje direktno u državne obveznice, dakle svodi se na obećanje države da će jednom vratiti taj novac, što u biti može napraviti uglavnom iz budućih poreza.

No, ako vam je ovo kontroverzno, krenimo drugim putem. Trenutnom poreznom opterećenju dodajmo deficit državnog proračuna. To je ‘nezarađena potrošnja’, naime opet ‘minus’ koji će se morati vratiti iz budućih poreza! (Dakle samo odgoda poreznog opterećenja.)

Sad pogledajte kako to izgleda. Najprije svi (bez Luksemburga):

Bez Irske:




I na koncu samo nama usporedive zemlje:

Evidentno je da su porezi u Hrvatskoj baš jako veliki!

3. Naravno, u skladu s time je i državna potrošnja u Hrvatskoj jako velika! Samo ako ju promatramo u pravim ko-ordinatama. Iako i bez ovakvog promatranja to znamo iz mnoštva drugih podataka.

Evo najprije cijela EU (bez Luksemburga)

A evo i samo nama usporedivih zemalja:



Kao što vidite, potrošnju sličnu nama imaju samo Mađarska i Slovenija, koje si to puno više od nas mogu i priuštiti! Nema nikakve sumnje da smo u nama usporedivoj skupini šampioni državne potrošnje i stoga je potpuno nevjerojatno da naši mediji bez ismijavanja i dalje prenose izjave nekih aktera koji tvrde da je ‘dosta brutalne štednje’ ili slične besmislice!

4. Veliki porezi ne moraju nužno uništavati gospodarski rast (odnosno, oni koji se s time ne slažu, mogu se oko toga beskonačno sporiti). Ali znamo da je u hrvatskom slučaju to zaista tako. Naime, veliki porezi su u Hrvatskoj bili isključivo zato da bi se mogao podržavati javni sektor. Tokom ‘krize’ (a zapravo razotkrivanja naših slabosti) je javni sektor po broju zaposlenih ostao isti ili čak malo porastao, a privatni je izgubio oko 150.000 radnih mjesta. Ako uzmemo u obzir da je u najširem smislu javni sektor oko 400.000 zaposlenih, s obzirom na stopu umirovljenja od barem 3% godišnje, možemo lako izračunati da je tokom četiri godine u njega nagurano novih barem 60.000 ljudi.

Stoga je lako zaključiti da su veliki porezi uništavali gospodarstvo, te da ova Vlada nije bila socijaldemokratska. Naime nije socijaldemokratski povećavati nezaposlenost i time stvarati velike razlike.

Jedna od rijetkih ‘ideja’ koja će kod Pikettyja preživjeti test vremena je u stvari notorna (ne njegova) činjenica, koja je jedan od temelja njegove teorije. A to je da se nejednakosti smanjuju kad je gospodarski rast velik. A to je zato jer su plaće (i zaposlenost) prociklička varijabla, a oni tada rastu brže od ‘rente’. Stoga je gospodarski pad zapravo dovodio do sve većih nejednakosti u Hrvatskoj. Jer radnik bez plaće je zaista ‘nejednak’.

5. Mnogi će ljevičari reći ‘Ali velika državna potrošnja podiže kvalitetu života’. To je klasična socijalistička varka koja podmeće da kad država ne bi osigurala nešto, toga uopće ne bi bilo. NE: u većini slučajeva bi to isto, ali bolje i jeftinije osigurao privatni sektor.

Međutim, i ovdje se možemo pozvati na podatke. Zahvaljujući preporuci Velimira Šonje sam pročitao odličnu (najrelevantniju?) knjigu o oporezivanju u zadnje vrijeme Government versus Markets: The Changing Economic Role of the State.

Ne da mi se sad prevoditi pa evo na engleskom iz nje:

"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."

6. Ovdje je još važno napomenuti sljedeće. Da bi vlade mogle jako oporezovati često se služe grdim trikovima. Vito Tanzi je u toj knjizi to nazvao ‘fiskalne iluzije’, a o tome je Velimir pisao ovdje, svakako pročitati!

A evo kako Tanzi opisuje fiskalne iluzije. Mislim da se sa svima njima suočavamo u Hrvatskoj!

"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."


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