In the US, federal regulations now run beyond 190,000 pages, double their length in the late 1970s. According to official data, the annual government-wide paperwork burden on Americans is currently the equivalent of 11.7bn hours (that’s roughly 5.6mn people working full time for a year). It was 9.9bn a decade ago, according to American Action Forum.
The trend is similar in Europe. The total word count of EU legislation has increased by more than 700 per cent since the Maastricht treaty, based on data collated by Jonas Herby for the European Policy Information Center. The UK tax code is over 20,000 pages longer than it was in the mid-1970s.
Divergent regulatory responses have also increased the burden of red tape on businesses with international operations.
In the past decade, trade restrictions have added insult to injury. “Subsidies, domestic-content rules and export controls have come with the turn towards protectionism and national industrial strategies,” says McLaughlin.
Indeed, US President Donald Trump’s tariffs — with their uncertainty, exemptions and complexity — are, in effect, a large new layer of red tape for business.
Complexity, in turn, makes it harder for bureaucrats to know how best to slash red tape.
The tax code has become more complex in advanced economies
For economic growth, the challenge isn’t just about writing good regulations, it’s whether we can discipline the tendency towards their accumulation, too.
Maybe now only Modi government knows how "economic growth, the challenge isn’t just about writing good regulations".
Recently India FM has introduced a series of reforms in GST lowering taxes on goods that are consumed by the poor and the middle class. Instead of 4 slabs tax system, India now has only 3 slabs. The compliance has also been unburned and upto an income of 1.2 M INR, Indians need not pay any taxes or submit ITRs.
This is just not a single incident, but ever since Modi became PM in 2014, he's been pro active on curbing down compliance for common people and small businesses.
You can call me biased if you want, but it's not for nothing Modi has been the No. 1 choice of +60% people in India for more than a decade now.
