Quote Originally Posted by EyeKhan View Post
You are saying, I think, US companies pay more in taxes than Canada (and implying, at least that's the way it reads, the rest of the world) because they pay an amount equal to X% of the US GDP while Canadian companies pay Y% of Canada's GDP and X > Y. All you're saying is the proportion one pays of their own respective country's GDP that the company's pay is higher than the other, which says nothing about actual tax amounts paid by companies or actual nominal or effective tax rates in comparison to each other.
Uh. . . tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is a fairly reasonable proxy and probably more useful when talking about countries as a whole *particularly in a comparative manner* than effective tax rates which can vary from industry to industry depending on the loopholes. Certainly vastly better than ANYTHING nominal. Just what is it you think the statistic would mask?