Where is the tax-burden highest in the OECD?
According the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Revenue Statistics publication, Denmark and Sweden are the OECD highest tax countries. Their tax/GDP ratio nears 50%. Mexico and Turkey remain the lowest-taxing countries with ratios of 20.6% and 24.5% respectively. Canada is below the OECD average at 33.3% compared to the OECD’s 35.9%. Canada’s performance is on par with that of Ireland. Other highlights: • In 2007, tax burdens rose in 11 of the 26 countries for which provisional figures are available and fell in 13 others. In Canada the ratio has been declining for the past 15 years. • The biggest year-to-year increases were in Hungary, from 37.1% in 2006 to 39.3% in 2007, followed by Korea from 26.8% to 28.7% and Italy, from 42.1% to 43.3%. • The biggest drop was in the Netherlands, from an estimated 39.3% to an estimated 38.0 %. In the current economic downturn, public finances will suffer further pressure and several OECD countries are beginning to observe a decline in revenue from
