Report reveals the top wasters of taxpayers’ money
The World Economic Forum (WEF) regularly assesses the competitiveness of 138 world economies. The assessment encompasses indicators, such as business infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, labour market efficiency, innovation, and efficiency of government spending. In this article, we will focus on the latter.
Inefficient governmental spending may include, for example, irrelevant research projects, redundant investment in public safety and military, and cutting the funding of vital sectors
In the latest report (2016 – 2017) published by the WEF, the examined countries were given a score between 1 (extremely inefficient revenue spending) and 7 (extremely efficient revenue spending). Venezuela (1.2), Lebanon (1.4), and Argentina (1.5) are the lowest in the ranking.
Italy (1.9), Slovenia (2.2), and Greece (2.2) are at the bottom of the European ranking. Belgium, which is continuously criticized for its complex and burdensome tax system, received the score of 3.3, next to Kenya (3.3) and Philippines (3.3).
The report indicated that even large economies, such as US (3.1), France (3.1), China, (4.1), Japan (4.1), and Germany (4.2), waste a lot of taxpayers’ money.
Qatar (6.0) and the United Arab Emirates (6.0) are the most efficient spenders of public revenue. In Europe, the Czech Republic (5.0), Finland (4.8), and Sweden (4.8) have the highest scores.
Below, we provide a list of the top 10 wasters of taxpayers’ money.
- Italy (1.9)
- Greece (2.2)
- Slovenia (2.2)
- Slovak Republic (2.3)
- Spain (2.5)
- Hungary (2.6)
- Mexico (2.6)
- Portugal (2.8)
- Poland (2.9)
- Latvia (3.0)
