Every year Canadians pay accountants and tax lawyers billions to do their taxes and help them navigate through the 1,400-page Income Tax Act (that's more than twice as many pages as the epic novel War and Peace!) plus another 700 pages of bulletins and technical interpretations.

Approximately 22 million Canadians file income tax returns. About one-third or 6.6 million pay no taxes, but file returns primarily to receive government benefits, such as GST credits and the Child Tax Benefit, that are used to redistribute income from higher to lower income individuals.

Is Canada's taxation system progressive You better believe it is! In fact, many would argue punitively progressive.

The federal income tax system is complicated by four tax brackets of 16%, 22%, 26%, and 29% depending on income (not to mention the Saskatchewan provincial income tax system with tax rates of 11.25%, 13.25% and 15.5%).

Thus, a person earning $75,000 not only pays more tax in absolute dollars than someone who earns $30,000, but the rate of tax becomes progressively steeper as income increases.

Some say this is 'fair'. Others would argue that this results in the fleecing of individuals at the middle and upper incomes.

For instance people earning over $50,000 in annual income comprise 21.5% of all tax filers, yet pay 63.7% of all the personal taxes.

Moving even higher up the income scale we see that the number of taxpayers drops and the percentage of taxes collected increases dramatically. Only 83,540 people (or 0.6% of the taxable population) in Canada have incomes higher than $250,000, but they paid $17 billion in taxes or 15% of the total income taxes collected. That works out to be 25 times their proportion of the tax paying population.

So, contrary to popular belief, the rich do pay their 'fair share' of taxes. Go tell it on the mountain. But don't bother telling policy makers in Russia (of all places!) cause they already know. As of January 1, 2001, Russians have enjoyed a 13% flat tax. (Even the old Russian tax system was simpler than Canada's, with three rates of 12%, 20%, and 30%).

In terms of revenue, the new 13% rate has exceeded the wildest expectations of Russia's political class, jumping 28%. A few years ago, government tax revenue was equal to 9-10% of Russia's economic output (i.e. Gross Domestic Product). By November last year, that number had grown to 16%, no doubt as a result of the 'Laffer Curve' effect - that lower marginal tax rates can actually produce higher tax revenues by removing the disincentives for working harder, earning higher incomes, taking a better job, and generally being more productive.

The new system has also helped unearth the underground economy where, just as in Canada, people will pay in goods (or 'under the table') rather than above-board cash transactions in order to avoid the taxman.

Russia has also reduced the tax burden on businesses from 35% to 24% and is seriously considering offering the Russian people the option of using privately invested social security accounts, much like the U.S. is planning for its citizens.

No doubt Lenin is turning over in his tomb. Stranger still, policy makers in Canada could learn a thing or two from- Russia ! !