Tax Burdens Around the World: U.S. Near the Middle

THE ECONOMIST--Paying taxes is, for most people, both unavoidable and irksome. But how much hard-earned pay is taken by governments varies considerably across the world. Among the rich countries of the OECD, Germans shell out the most, with a worker earning an average income giving 43% of their gross pay to the state, with nearly half of that going towards social security.

Workers in Poland hand over nearly 25% of their wages to social security; whereas Australians pay nothing at all directly. Mexicans and South Koreans enjoy the lightest taxation by some way (see chart above).

Comments

[fjd10595:]

good to know, but expand it, add in a few more of the so called "flat tax" countries like Russia.

2008 Mar 13 07:49 AM

[spbigger:]

This chart is interesting. But, it does not reveal the benefits available in the listed countries or the percent of income going toward them. For the US,for instance, I would suspect that when one factors in unemployment compensation, disability, Medical insurance, and general living standards, the US would rank much worse than indicated here in terms of cost as well as percentage per wage earner.

2008 Mar 13 08:38 AM

[Vasiliy:]

Russia.... the most dangerous country in the whole wolrd. Don't play with your life, just remmeber - from 101 billionaire 101 keeps their families out of Russia.

2008 Mar 14 07:49 AM

[whidbey:]

This is an interesting but incomplete analysis. When state and local property and sales taxes are added, this anaysis will show that Americans pay in the upper quartertile of world taxes (calculate ~ top 10%). Now add the housing collaspe; it lowers the property tax and sales tax receipts. The US will see its local and state governments in or near bankruptcy. Politicians have little capacity to the deal with the future. Tough times are at hand for us all.

2008 Mar 15 11:07 AM

[dustbusterz:]

this is a good article over all, but not all countires seem to be included in this story. I'd like to see what other countries are paying in the way of taxes as compared to earnings. like lets say the philippines. that seems to be excluded(why?)and what about iraq? and how about yeaman ?
also , why not discuss their current social security system. how it works compared to americans and how is their social security system fairing( is it well funded? or is it going bankrupt like ours?)

2008 Apr 01 01:46 AM

[jrtaylorinflag:]

Mr. Perry's chart is incomplete in regards to the total tax burden for the U.S citizen or any other citizen in the world for that matter. In the U.S, the Fed. income tax and FICA hardly even begins to account for the average persons tax burden, to say nothing of mandatory fees charged by local, state, and fed. agencies to subsidize operations.
The average American can rifle off a laundry list of taxes and fees that they pay in addition to their income taxes/ FICA which in total may well accede the latter.
The problem with charts like Mr. Perry's is that we have no way of knowing if it is actually comparing apples & apples. How do we know what percentage the income tax is of the total revenue burden for a given country?
It is reasonable to assume there is a significant variability from nation to nation as to how inclusive their income tax is as a percentage of the total per capita cost of government operations. My hunch is that the supposed " high income tax countries" listed on the chart would be shown to have income taxes that represent a much higher percent of the total per capita revenue burden then say the U.S. that collects a large portion of its needed revenue from fines, fees, sales taxes, etc. etc.
I would be very interested in seeing a study that actually compared total per capita burdens of different countries. That could be a very revealing study in showing how other countries go about raising revenue to fund government operations.
An interesting follow on study would be to evaluate which country gets the most bang-for-the-buck (or Euro) for revenue spent. My suspicion is the US will not be near the top of the list.

2008 Apr 24 09:56 AM