It turns out that in France the Value Added Tax accounts for 56% of the state’s net receivables in 2019. It was as high as 63% in 2018 (see page 4 in both documents, thanks France for keeping the formatting the same year to year). That is to say, the personal income tax plus the tax on the income of companies plus all other non-VAT taxes all together contribute less than 50% to the state’s budget.

The VAT is, apparently, one of the easiest taxes to implement fraudlent schemes with due to the fact that we aren’t an entirely cashless society yet, and that the end companies selling to consumers are the ones responsible for collecting and paying the VAT.

Is there a world where we don’t have personal income taxes or corporate taxes, and the VAT income is 100% of a state budget? And where the most common criminal offence is cheating on company VAT returns?