09/03/2005 9:43:58 pm
The Highest Taxes - No Matter How You Count. Sometimes people defending big government say that the way the tax pressure is calculated is wrong. They say that the figure gets too high because often the government?s social contributions are taxed and the tax is counted again. So if we take that away, Swedish and other Western European taxes are not so high. Now, the Swedish Tax Payers Association have calculated the tax pressure and excluded such factors. Still, Sweden has the highest taxes in the world, followed by the rest of Western Europe. And we have the highest taxes on work (as if we didn?t want more people to work). Below is the tax pressure in the developed countries calculated this alternative way, first with the total tax pressure and second the tax on work (in per cent):

Sweden 45,2 35,1
Belgium 42,7 31,2
Denmark 41,8 32,5
Luxembourg 40,4 26,7
Austria 40,1 28,1
Finland 38,7 27,4
France 38,5 29,1
Norway 38,4 27,9
Italy 37,6 21,4
Canada 37,2 24,1
Germany 36,7 28,1
Britain 35,3 22,5
The Netherlands 35 22,3
Switzerland 32,1 26,7
New Zealand 31,9 19,4
Iceland 31,5 19,4
Spain 29,7 22,6
Ireland 29,7 18,1
Portugal 29,5 20,9
Australia 29,2 19,1
USA 29,2 20,4