(from a Slate article) An excellent study by Price-Waterhouse that compares various aspects of taxes on a fictional small business in 183 different countries and regions.
It's noteworthy in that they actually did use a representative small business (only 60 employees) for comparison, which is big enough that it would likely not get away without substantial levels of compliance that one or two person businesses might, but much smaller than the kind of large businesses that generate most of the attention. Best of all, the full report is available for free:
Here's a sortable table:
Interesting that some countries with generally higher individual tax rates are actually fairly easy on their businesses.
Hong Kong comes in with 24.1% total tax rate, Canada at 29.2%, Israel at 31.7%, UK at 37.3%, the Netherlands at 40.5%,the US at 46.8% Japan at 48.6% and Germany at 48.2%, with China having a whopping 63.5% total tax rate.
In ease of compliance, Hong Kong is 3rd, Canada 10th, the UK 16th, the Netherlands 27th, the US 62nd, Israel 82nd, Germany 88th, Japan 112th and China 114th.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany