FACTOID # 4: Tax makes up half of the of Gross Domestic Product in Denmark and Sweden. In Japan and the United States, it makes up less than 30%.
 
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Taxation Statistics > Total tax wedge > Single worker (most recent) by country

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Rank   Countries  Amount  (top to bottom)   
#1  Belgium:55.6% 
#2  Hungary:52.6% 
#3  Germany:50.7% 
#4  Sweden:48.6% 
#5  France:48.3% 
#6  Italy:46.2% 
#7  Finland:45.9% 
#8  Austria:44.7% 
#9  Denmark:44.2% 
#10  Turkey:43.2% 
#11  Czech Republic:43% 
#12  Poland:42.9% 
#13  Netherlands:42.3% 
#14  Slovakia:42% 
#15  Spain:37.9% 
#16  Norway:37% 
#17  Greece:36% 
#18  Luxembourg:33.9% 
#19  Portugal:32.5% 
#20  Canada:30.2% 
#21  United States:30% 
#22  United Kingdom:29.7% 
#23  Switzerland:29.5% 
#24  Ireland:25.8% 
#25  Iceland:25.7% 
#26  Japan:24.2% 
#27  Australia:23.1% 
#28  New Zealand:19.6% 
#29  Mexico:15.6% 
Weighted average: 37.3%  


DEFINITION: The percentage of gross earnings given up in tax, including any social security contributions. Calculated for a single worker without children, earning 100 % of the average wage. Data for 2001, and only for selected OECD countries.

SOURCE: OECD

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COMMENTARY     

Martin
15th June 2005
CW,
I have the "pleasure" to live in such a socialist country, and in addition to a 20% Sales tax (VAT) we also have taxes on gas, which leads to fuel prices of 1.2 Euro / litre, which is 0.26 gallons. So we pay approximately 4.8 Euro per Gallon, which is in 5.8 in usd.
Eliezer Garza
15th July 2005
In the case of Mexico the 15.6% is plain wrong, we pay that much just as sales tax, the normal is around 30% plus sales, plus gas taxes that makes you wonder if you really live in an oil producing country. We even have a new car tax, and all sort f dumb taxes. If you compound all this we come out at about 50%, without the European benefit of social security.
Peter A
28th July 2005
It's interesting that the richest areas of the world are also the most taxed - EU, North America, Australia and Japan.
Paul
22nd October 2005
I am an American working in Germany and believe me even with all the U.S. taxes combined it doesn't come close to what they pay here.First of all 50% of your pay goes to taxes and that does NOT include health insurance which is separate, paid half by your employer. Add to that 16% sales tax plus your car taxes and you will come up with a 90% of your gross income being taxed. Also I have no idea how they came up with the United Kingdom being at #22 they are very heavily taxed too maby not the income but things like sales,ground and automobile taxes are outrages.
Alex Guerrero
3rd November 2005
The case of Mexico is completely right (>15%), Eliana. A 30% VAT doesn't mean that the tax burden on GDP is 30%. Consumption taxes are a portion of the total tax burden, and there exist evasion, black economy and other elements that lower the ammount of final revenue.
stockholm-ex
19th November 2005
Sweden hides its full taxation by shifting a large portion of it to the employer. He has to add some 40 odd percent to each paycheck.
Then you add 25 percent salestax to most things purchased.
In a world market to pay the net same to a Swedish worker you'd have to pay him ~40% less. That would mean a total eqvivalent taxation of about 72%. The employer cannot obviously print the extra 40% so it comes back as a lower wage, or an outsourced job. On the bonus side of the equation tax cheating becomes very profitable, and unfortunately the focus on productivity and invention shifts to escaping taxes as the main priority to increase profits, which makes the productivity and invention suffer.
Not very smart. I don't think the feudal lords charged that much tax.
the J
2nd February 2006
This is a very complex issue, there are many factors to this. First you have to consider the end buy power of the person. It's is what the individual sees as his real income even tough they will complain as hell.

Now even in countries like Sweeden and Finland (i have worked in both, as well as england) where the tax rate is orbitaly high, the buy power of a person is relatively high despite of this fact. Offcourse theres burden to the person in question but mostly it affects empleyment.

Now in the nordic countries the taxation widh is considerably higher than 50% because of what the employer pays too like said earlier...

What is the benefit? Well for one thing, education even higer university degrees are FREE OF CHARGE, that also means students are partialy paid for living too during this time. This mean that the avarage finn saves some quarter of a million euros in educational cost, of their 5-7 years average university studies.

Same applies to halthcare wich is only done better in canada IMHO.

Now also the nordic taxation is progressive so that it avarages the salaries between high pay and low pay workers. This mans that theres a relavively low crime rate in theese countries, especialy the more populatinaly homogenous finnland and norway (tough finns have long lasting tradition of knifing their drinking buddies to death).

And last but not least some of the taxes come back to you in other forms, one is the very long and paid, job back guaranteed sweedish and finnish materinty/fathernity leaves.

However the systems have hard time coping with the reverse pyramidial form of their population age structure. To wich end finns have worked much but sweeds not so, time will tell wichone will pan out.
Ales
22nd March 2006
America has some of the highest taxed working class people if you actually do all the calculations. Also people who talk about living in other countries as a foreigner should remember that they generarly get taxed differently than locals and most importantly will never see the benefits of their taxed incomes. Such as subsidized or paid for education, paid for medical, dental, day care, maturnity leave, etc.
Floccina
5th April 2006
'Now also the nordic taxation is progressive so that it avarages the salaries between high pay and low pay workers. This mans that theres a relavively low crime rate in theese countries, especialy the more populatinaly homogenous finnland and norway (tough finns have long lasting tradition of knifing their drinking buddies to death).'


In the USA North Dakota is populated mostly by descendents of Norwegians and has a crime rate very similar to that of Norway.
Imran (Bahrain)
28th May 2006
We dont have any taxes in Bahrain. Zero taxes, no healthcare though. However its all Tax Free.
Titinho (Brazil)
30th May 2006
Brazil is the most corrupt and have the highest taxes in the world. A simple worker would pay more than 27,5% of his salary in taxes.
padrede3 (California)
12th June 2006
The tax rate for Mexico can;t be right; having worked there for 20 years I know for a fact that it's AT LEAST 35%. Flawed data?
Frank (Guyana)
5th May 2007
Germany has a progessive tax rate system with 100s to thousands of exceptions. Results in a relatively fair Tax System. Problem is the double and triple taxation. A solution to this could be the recent idea of the "Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen", which would discontinue all sort of taxes and only VAT (of 40 to 50 percent) would be applied to all goods and services. Progressive Income Tax is superior to the fixed or banded rates. If you earn only little more then tax free allowance, you start with 1%, progressing to around 40% (2007) when you reach the maximum taxable income.
Laurie (France)
17th January 2008
I question the rate for Australia. This
http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc=/content/12333.htm&mnu=5053&mfp=001
shows that income tax alone for most people is well over the amount in the table, not including sales taxes etc.
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