Have you paid your taxes?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tax evasion is rife in many parts of the world, but might that be partly because we are we taxing the wrong things?
Ed Butler looks at two countries overwhelmed by the problem. Bolivia has the proportionately largest tax-avoiding black economy in the world (at least of countries that gather statistics on these things). Katy Watson reports from a hilltop flea market where paying tax is simply considered bad for business.
Meanwhile Greek economist Nicholas Economides discusses his country's clampdown on the 30% of the economy that operates below the tax radar by encouraging a shift away from cash towards electronic payments that can be more easily monitored.
But are all these efforts being directed at the wrong targets? Most of the tax burden falls on labour in the form of income tax, but comedian and author Dominic Frisby says wealth, land and capital are let off far too lightly.
(Picture: Bolivian woman carrying her baby; Credit: hadynyah/Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:05.3 | Today we are visiting the tax dodgiest nation in the world. |
| 0:10.7 | People don't come into shopping centres. |
| 0:13.4 | In shopping centres, you have to pay taxes so it doesn't add up. |
| 0:17.2 | We prefer to sell in the streets. |
| 0:19.1 | Yep, we're hearing from Bolivia's tax woes and from an author who says that tax codes everywhere need a rethink. |
| 0:26.2 | 50% of government revenue in the developed world comes from income taxes, a tax on labour. |
| 0:33.2 | So it's the worker who plays the vast amount of taxes. |
| 0:37.4 | But we don't tax capital to anything like the same degree. |
| 0:40.7 | That's all to come in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:46.0 | There are two certainties in life, they say, death and taxes. |
| 0:50.7 | Taxation is as old as civilisation itself. |
| 0:53.3 | That's the comedian and author Tom Frisbee. |
| 0:55.6 | The very first written records we have are tax records or records of debts owed. And if you look at any |
| 1:03.7 | kind of great event in history, any defy, you know, the birth of Christ or first men on the moon |
| 1:08.3 | or whatever it is, if you dig around, you can often find a tax |
| 1:11.0 | story lurking in there without which that event would have been very different. |
| 1:15.8 | Tantalising. But hold that historical thought just for one second, because right now, |
| 1:20.8 | from the Gilles-Jone or Yellow Vest protest movement in France to Lebanon street riots, |
| 1:26.7 | the question of tax and accountability has become |
| 1:29.4 | a hot one everywhere. Take Latin America, for instance. Bolivia has been making headlines in |
| 1:34.5 | recent weeks with political upheaval, the resignation of its president, Evo Morales, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.