
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 17, 1995                   TAG: 9504180069
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DEADLINE

THE QUALITY of mercy droppeth from the Internal Revenue Service as the gentle rain from heaven: Since April 15 this year fell on a Saturday, taxpayers were granted an extra two days - until midnight tonight - to file their federal returns.

More solace of a sort:

Compared to other industrialized nations, the United States is lightly taxed.

All U.S. tax revenues total about 30 percent of the gross domestic product. That's the same as Japan and less than - in ascending order - Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Greece, France, Denmark and Sweden.

Caveat: America's lower tax burden doesn't necessarily imply that its public sector is more efficient. As a rule, the other countries provide more government services, like nationalized health insurance. Nor do the comparisons include deficits, which might be viewed as an unspecified future tax - though U.S. deficits, for the size of its economy, are far from the highest in the industrialized world.

The U.S. individual income-tax burden is no worse than roughly average for industrialized nations.

Individual income-tax revenues are a lower percentage of the gross domestic product in Japan, Greece and France; they're about the same in Britain; they're higher in Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. Japan's and France's top individual income-tax rates are higher, however, while Britain's and Switzerland's are lower.

Compliance in the United States is considered fairly good, especially when compared to the chaotic tax and tax-collection systems of places like Russia and Mexico.

Japan, however, is said to have the best compliance in the world. Under a system set up after World War II by a - you guessed it - U.S. economist, most Japanese don't even have to file tax returns: The tax withheld from their paychecks is calibrated to come out exactly right by the end of the year.

In other words, the chances in America tonight are better than in Russia or Mexico but worse than in Japan that, to paraphrase the Psalmist, mercy and truth will be met together.

by CNB