Tax regimes change rapidly all over the world, and the World Bank's Report 'Paying Taxes 2013' sums up what needs to be known.
The Paying Taxes indicators (the Total Tax Rate, the time to comply and the number of payments) have now
been part of the World Bank Group Doing Business project for eight years, monitoring the changes and reforms made to tax regimes around the world. The simple aim of the study is to supply business leaders and policy makers with robust data to enable tax systems to be compared on a like for like basis, and to help inform the dialogue which underlies the development of tax policy.

The study is unique in that it now not only covers 185 economies, but it also provides an insight into how tax systems have developed over a consistent methodology.