I asked Google for countries with no personal income taxes, and it gave me the following: obviously incorrect...

[jafo]

Then I asked Open AI for a list of countries with no personal income taxes and it gave me this:

Now, we all know that UAE "claims" no personal income taxes, but...I prefer NOT to be curmudgeonly, so I'll bite my tongue...interpret my silence.

Can we discuss and settle which countries REALLY have NO personal income taxes (without sophistry and casuistry)?

PS. I have other questions and filters, but starting with a narrow legal definition of "no personal income tax" prevents the "waters from getting muddy."

 

[daniels27]

Does personal income tax include social contributions?

 

[JohnLocke]

Monaco and Bahamas have no personal income tax as far as I remember.

 

[jafo]

Does personal income tax include social contributions?

NGL, I'm not sure what this means.

 

[daniels27]

There are many countries with no personal income tax. But you end up paying up to 20% social security contributions.

 

[jafo]

There are many countries with no personal income tax. But you end up paying up to 20% social security contributions.

Mmmm.... then it's a "tax" relabeled as something else?

I'd like to keep them as "no personal income taxes" like Monaco or Bahamas.

 

[Cloudbanck]

NGL, I'm not sure what this means.

Lots of countries make a difference between income tax, and social contributions, the latter supposedly going to your pension or to your unemployment benefits. However, in reality they all go to the same government pot, and then the government can waste them in whatever way it likes, so I would count social contributions and income tax as pretty equivalent. Social contributions are in practice just income tax called something different.

There is one exception though and that is Singapore. There, residents are forced to pay a percentage of earnings into a Central Provident Fund (CPF) , but it goes into segregated personal accounts that the government doesnt touch, and then one can start accessing the personal CPF from 55 years of age.

The CPF existed under colonial times, but Lee Kuan Yew expanded it and made it a pillar of the Singaporean social security system. Basically after realising what an utter disaster the western welfare systems were, disincentivising hard work, promoting lazyness and creating poverty and misery.