Very taxing indeed

After experiencing what is by far the most bureaucracy I've ever dealt with as a foreigner in Sweden – in the form of Migrationsverket (the Swedish Immigration Agency) – I find it rather ironic that completing one of the more onerous paperwork tasks EVER can be as simple as sending an SMS. Of course, I shouldn’t be all that surprised, as taxation is one of the things Sweden does very well. In fact, the country comes in at number one. According to the OECD, the tax burden is over 50% of GPD (2003). But somehow, I think that promoting the Swedish Bikini Team makes a better tourist gimmick than advertising that your country wins the "gold medal for highest tax burden in the world."