The Nordic countries do quite well, but it's on the back of a largely homogeneous population and a significant amount of national wealth from natural resource extraction, and just using the same policies somewhere that isn't the case wouldn't necessarily work. France has generous benefits but such a high youth unemployment rate that people are literally rioting in the streets. Italy is overrun with corruption and people don't pay tax there regardless of what the law says they're supposed to do, so looking at what laws they have doesn't paint an accurate picture of what actually happens.
> Italy is overrun with corruption and people don't pay tax there regardless of what the law says they're supposed to do
Actually, as a whole, Americans are much less likely to cheat on taxes than Europeans, by a significant margin. This means a lower tax rate in America, when combined with the likelihood of Americans to actually cough up cash, may be on par with a higher tax rate in Europe, considering that Europeans are more likely to be cheaters.
It would be interesting to see an analysis of how this empirical truth affects the percent tax actually paid.
The Nordic countries do quite well, but it's on the back of a largely homogeneous population and a significant amount of national wealth from natural resource extraction, and just using the same policies somewhere that isn't the case wouldn't necessarily work. France has generous benefits but such a high youth unemployment rate that people are literally rioting in the streets. Italy is overrun with corruption and people don't pay tax there regardless of what the law says they're supposed to do, so looking at what laws they have doesn't paint an accurate picture of what actually happens.
They're as different as they are the same.