18/10/2005 11:56:00 am
Taxes in the World. Last week, the OECD published its latest Revenue Statistics with information about taxes. Here is a summary and here are the diagrams.

It shows the current tax pressure in the OECD countries. Sweden has the highest tax pressure, with 50,7 per cent and the average is 36,3 per cent. Here, Danne Nordling has made some interesting calculations about the Swedish situation.

The document also shows that there are quite big differences concerning sources of tax revenues. And it has an interesting diagram showing the development of the taxes in various countries 1975-2004. The tax pressure is today lower in only three countries; The Netherlands, Germany and the US.

But taxes increased in most countries until the mid-1980s. Since then, it has stoppped or decreased in several countries. And the fact that in some countries, the increase during the seventies and eighties is taken back, shows a good pace of reform in the last years.