China has the harshest tax regime in the Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong offers the friendliest, and India added the most misery to its tax regime last year, according to Forbes Asia.

While New Delhi maintains a relatively low rank of 23rd least friendly tax climate in this year’s Tax Misery Index, India saw its misery score rise by 24 points to 113.4, after it raised social security charges for employers and employees, the business magazine said.

New Zealand made the biggest improvement in the Asia-Pacific region by easing individual and social security taxes.

"This move is part of a trend in Asia toward increasing social security coverage to a level comparable to that in Europe," Forbes said.

India was ranked the 35th least tax friendly jurisdiction in the 2008 list. In India’s total score of 113.4 points this year, corporate and personal income tax rates account for 42 points and 34 points respectively, 12.4 points are for VAT/sales tax, 12 points are attributed to each of employer and employee social security, and one point is for wealth tax.

The top-end corporate tax rate of 42 per cent in India is higher than any other jurisdiction in the world, except for two in the U.S.: New York City has a 46.2 per cent and Illinois has a 42.3 per cent corporate tax rate. Japan follows with a corporate tax rate of 41 per cent.

Forbes said China’s tax "misery score" rose seven points to 159, after Beijing imposed higher employer and employee social security taxes as a result of the global economic downturn.

China levies a 25 per cent tax on corporate income, 45 per cent on personal income, 49 per cent for employers’ social security, 23 per cent for employees’ social security and 17 per cent on goods and services, the survey showed.

Hong Kong’s tax misery score of 41.5 ranked the best in the Asia-Pacific region. Hong Kong’s corporate tax stands at 16.5 per cent, personal income tax at 15 per cent and employer and employee social security levy at 5 per cent each, it said.

"This year, most Asian jurisdictions continue to have (a) more tax-friendly environment compared with other parts of the world," Forbes said.

"The survey shows that outside of China and Japan, the rest of Asia continues to enjoy stable, low tax advantage."

Japan’s misery score of 122.6 ranked it as having Asia’s second least friendly tax environment after China, followed by Taiwan. Hong Kong as the region’s second-most friendly with a score of 75, the survey said.