Considering how persistently we refer to our planet as a "small" and "inter-connected" world, it's remarkable to what extent every single country differs from others – even from the immediate neighbors, let alone those separated by oceans, social structures, wealth, religion, culture, etc. And as someone who's been in international business practically all of her career, I am inclined to say that some of the most disparate, incompatible, and frequently irreconcilable national distinctions are the tax laws.
There is a tremendous variation in rules and rates used by governments in order to hack away a chunk of revenues from native, resident, and even passing-through individuals and businesses. Moreover, the relationships between the national tax legislatures are so complicated, they make international tax attorneys into some of the richest bloodsucking professionals. This bullshit, frequently dictated by nationalism, makes the lives of international businesses and cosmopolitan persons alike very complicated and overly expensive. More frequently than not human and artificial taxpayers (thouse who don't cheat and try to avoid going to jail for ridiculous violations) end up paying double, triple, and quadruple taxes.
I personally know people who gave up their US citizenship in order to avoid giving away their entire wealth to multiple governments. Even though, as a financial professional, I totally support their decisions, it always made the patriot in me very sad. But the fact that an American treasure, Tina Turner, will be Swiss now in the name of tax savings – that's just heartbreaking, granted she has been residentially foreign to her homeland for the past 18 years. (By the way, my mind simply refuses to deal with Gerard Depardieu's becoming a Russian).
Robert Wood's article for Forbes (see the link below) is not necessarily the most coherent, but it's relatively brief and full of illuminating numbers that many of my readers will find interesting. Enjoy it!
The Frustrated CFO 