Talk:List of sovereign states by tax revenue to GDP ratio

Comment

The USA entry appears to be grossly misleading. It appears to show just federal tax revenue, and the phrase "all levels" is incomprehensible. According to this link, http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history the true figure is closer to 35%. Given the natural interest in comparing the world's largest economy to other nations, to include only federal taxes makes a mockery of the whole table. In my opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.221.200 (talk) 13:47, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Spending is about 35% and collection is less, hence the structural deficient. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:22, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

"total tax revenue" is not defined. Do you mean total tax revenue collected by the federal/national governement, or are state/provincial and other smaller units of government included? After all, they generally collect "taxes" too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.91.163.131 (talk) 18:29, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

where is australia? It's there!

Where are Japan, Poland, Portugal, Netherlands, and Greece? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.12.254 (talk) 03:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a fundamental problem with this page, which is that it is dominated by statistics created by the right-wing US lobbying outfit The Heritage Foundation. It is absolutely in their best interests to make the US seem burdened by taxes relative to other sources. The World Bank, drawing from the International Monetary Fund and OECD estimates, puts the US at 10.2%, which ranks 11th out of 113 rated countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.52.42.155 (talk) 00:51, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Hey everyone, I was just wondering if the graphs plotting revenues against growth rates are relevant for this page? This is a page which gives the reader facts about tax revenues by nations, not one which discusses the effects of taxes on economic growth. Would these graphs not be more appropriate on a page about the effects of taxation, where the topic of using cross country comparisons to estimate the influence of taxes on growth can be discussed in more depth? Beanz1936 (talk) 15:40, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Consistency in the definition of "tax" (vs "social contribution")

This article is inconsistent in its definition of taxes. Social contributions are NOT taxes, they are in mostly contributions by individuals to their own retirement in countries that have publically run pensions systems. Simply put: if contributions in the exact same amount were given to privately run retirement companies to offer the exact same services, they would not appear as "taxes" in this table. The fact is that listing social contributions as taxes is a misleading way to improve the economic stats of countries that have privately run pensions services in comparison to those who have public ones. It is true that the OECD uses this criterion, which makes it difficult to adopt another method, BUT this Wikipedia article should at least be consistent and open about the criterion adopted, which is not what happens, for example, in the "Total revenue from direct and indirect taxes given as share of GDP in 2017" map, which does not mention social contributions, despite the source of that map ("Our World in Data") identifying it as "Total revenue from social contributions, direct and indirect taxes given as share of GDP." (For some reason, whoever chose to use this illustration decided to remove "social contributions" from the description.)

Please be open and consistent about the methodology used. Abueno97 (talk) 10:05, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

looking at the cited reference for Australia.

The figure for federal government take is approx. 25%, the 30% figure is for total taxation, fed., state and local.

I think the list states at the top it is percentage for federal/central government, but uncertain? will change? Yes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.65.142 (talk) 22:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry two conflicting sources, OECD report says one thing ABS says another. I will leave it at 30% because the OECD is likely to be comparing like with like. However text at the top needs a change to reflect what the table is actually measuring, looking at the australian example it seems to be measuring total tax % of GDP, not just central/federal government tax % of GDP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.65.142 (talk) 22:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

All the percentages for all the nations are for total tax revenues (federal, state, and local). I clarified the introduction.

Compare OECD and Eurostat total tax percentages for each nation listed in the references. They are nearly identical. The table is using the Eurostat numbers for nearly all the nations.

As for Australia the Australian reference states:

"TAXATION REVENUE AS A PROPORTION OF GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP). Total taxation revenue as a proportion of GDP decreased from 31.1% in 2004-05 to 30.8% in 2005-06. As a percentage of GDP, taxation revenue for the Commonwealth Government fell from 25.6% to 25.4%, while taxation revenue for state and local governments fell from 5.6% to 5.5% in 2005-06."

The 2005 OECD percentage for Australia is 30.9. I used it since it is nearly identical to the Australian source.

So the percentages for all the nations are for total taxes at all levels of government. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Tax rates are under-reported for some countries

The overall government tax rate as a percentage of GDP as reported in this table is misleading for several of the countries that do not have a unitary national tax system. For example, in the US, the table misses the substantial state and local taxes that would add another 10% or more to the total tax load as a percentage of GDP; ditto for Switzerland which has contonal and local taxes in addition to the federal taxes. While it may be difficult to find all the requisite data to make the table accurate, I would propose that we, at minimum, edit the article to reflect such shortcomings in the table. We do not want WP to provide false information. What do others think? N2e (talk) 00:19, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Please see the previous talk section. All the percentages for all the nations are for total tax revenues (federal, state, and local). --Timeshifter (talk) 10:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

it seems fairly clear that the USA figures are only federal, making any comparison meaningless. See http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.221.200 (talk) 13:50, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

It may be that the figure for the US on the current page is underestimated, but it is **not** the case that it is solely the federal tax revenue. Total federal revenue for 2012, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget was $2.449 trillion, while the GDP was $15.864 trillion, for a revenue of only 15.4%.MeatBot (talk) 15:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

New Discussion

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 12:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Many countries removed unnecessarily

This 18:05, 22 January 2009 diff [1] removed many countries from the list. I suggest creating a column for the year, and putting back those countries. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I returned the countries that were removed. I also updated their numbers, and the reference link. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Rank column

I removed the rank column. It makes it very time consuming to add more countries to the chart. That may be why people have been adding additional countries in other sections of the article outside the chart. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Doubled

I added the countries listed in the Asian Development Bank's database, but managed to screw up the formatting. If anyone wants to take a shot at it, all the [6] references should be [5]. 08:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I corrected the formatting.

I downloaded the Microsoft Excel Viewer and looked at the ADB chart:

• http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Key_Indicators/2008/xls/RT-6-02.xls

It says "Data refer to central government, except for Bangladesh, People's Republic of China, Georgia, Kiribati, Kyrgyz Republic, Federated States of Micronesia, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, where data refer to consolidated government or general government."

From examination of the previous Pakistan info, http://www.dawn.com/2008/06/11/ebr1.htm , and Economy of Pakistan, it seems that sales tax is not all being counted in the Pakistan number in http://www.dawn.com/2008/06/11/ebr1.htm

From Economy of Pakistan: "Sales tax is levied at 15 percent both on imports and domestically produced products. The income withholding tax is levied at 6 percent on imports and at 3.5 percent on the sales of domestic taxpayers."

So since the ADB info has a similar number as that found in http://www.dawn.com/2008/06/11/ebr1.htm then it seems to me that it is not clear the ADB numbers are for total taxes for any of the countries listed in the ADB chart. I removed those countries from the Wikipedia chart.

In case some clearer info is found for those countries here is the version of the wikipedia article with the ADB countries: [2]

The numbers can be corrected and added into that version using the preview button. Then the relevant parts of the table in that version can be copied over to the latest version of the Wikipedia table. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The dawn.com article DOES include sales tax. The article states (emphasis added)

"According to the survey, the country’s tax regime resembles the one generally practiced throughout Latin American countries, WHERE INDIRECT TAXES, IN PARTICULAR THE SALES TAX occupy a relatively high share within the overall tax revenue.

.... The indirect tax to GDP ratio stood at around 6 per cent and direct tax to GDP ratio stood at around 4 per cent and less than 2 per cent if withholding taxes are excluded."

The "Economy of Pakistan" article also states that total revenue collection was about $14 billion, and the GDP is around $140 billion, so the numbers reconcile. Now if you're wondering how a country which levies a sales tax of 15% can have a total tax to GDP ratio of 10%, the answer is "tax fraud". Many transactions are unofficial transactions. However, the government does include some of the unofficial economy in its GDP numbers, but obviously cannot collect tax on any of it.

If there's no objection, I'm going to add the dawn.com figure (or ADB figure) back. (The Dawn newspaper is Pakistan's biggest english daily, and it cited in many Wikipedia articles. So the 10% figure definitely meets the verifiability criteria.) 207.237.219.51 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:58, 12 March 2009 (UTC).

I am not sure which countries to add back in from the ADB.org data since this is kind of vague: "Data refer to central government, except for Bangladesh, People's Republic of China, Georgia, Kiribati, Kyrgyz Republic, Federated States of Micronesia, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, where data refer to consolidated government or general government."

You make a fairly good case for Pakistan. We can put that back in since we have the dawn.org article: http://www.dawn.com/2008/06/11/ebr1.htm also. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:03, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Alphabetical order

I put the chart in alphabetical order. It makes it easier to update the numbers without having to reorder the list. It also makes it easier to find the number for a specific country. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't that make it a "List of countries by name, with tax revenue as percentage of GDP"? I thought listing by tax revenue as percentage of GDP meant listing in the order of tax revenue etc. At least that was the information I was hoping for when I clicked the link.--Badmuthahubbard (talk) 12:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I clarified the info at the top. The note now points out clearly how to put the chart in numerical order. I hope it is clearer. Let me know. The article name focuses on the purpose of the chart. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

3 sources. 1 for each column

User:CieloEstrellado added many nations to the chart. Thanks!

I added 2 columns to the chart. So there are currently 3 sources. 1 for each column. Here are the sources:

• 2009 Index of Economic Freedom, Heritage Foundation. Accessed on May 2, 2009. Note: Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was obtained from the individual country pages, under the "Fiscal Freedom" section. The year for the data for each country is not mentioned, but the source claims to use the most recent data up to June 30, 2008.[3]
• Revenue Statistics 1965-2007, 2008 Edition. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). ISBN 9789264051393 (book), ISBN 9789264051409 (ebook), and ISBN 9789264051485 (CD). Publication date: October 15, 2008. The data is found in Table A. Total tax revenue as percentage of GDP. By OECD nation, and by regional averages. 1975 to 2006. With provisional data also for 2007.
• Taxation Trends in the EU. 2008 edition. Taxation and Customs Union. European Commission. June 26, 2008 EUROSTAT (Statistical Office of the European Communities) press release: Taxation trends in the EU. EU27 tax ratio at 39.9% of GDP in 2006. See note 2 at the end for the meaning of the 2-letter country codes. See also: 2-Letter Country Codes.

The 3 sources are fairly close to each other for the tax percentages. Some of the slight differences may be due to different years being used.

The only problem I see is with the Mexico numbers. One of the sources is wrong. I think it is the Heritage Foundation source. See the "fiscal freedom" section of the Mexico page. Compare its number with the OECD number. Maybe someone can email the Heritage Foundation and point out the problem. I think their tax percentage for Mexico is half of what it should be. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

How is the heritage foundation a neutral source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.69.20 (talk) 04:47, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Inaccurate methodologies

You really need to review the methodology for these calculations since both the Heritage Foundation and the OECD are missing a lot of taxes. For instance, The Fraser Institute in Canada calculates Canada's tax burden per GDP as 43% while it's listed as 34% here. See http://www.fraserinstitute.org/newsandevents/news/6736.aspx

The cause of the discrepancy must be what the accounting standards for government in each jurisdiction count as "revenue." For instance, hypothecated taxes are likely missed (such as EI and CPP in Canada). The data in this chart are therefore unreliable for comparison purposes since it's probably only counting what revenue shows up in a government's Consolidated Revenue Fund/General Fund. G. Csikos, 13 June 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.83.68 (talk) 22:27, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

In the table 2 sources come up with about the same Canada number for percentage of GDP: 33.4 and 33.3

--Timeshifter (talk) 20:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I suspect a far larger source of error in the methodologies used by the sources principally cited is that they, as with most international organizations, tend to misunderstand the shared-sovereignty dynamics that exist in true Federated states, and therefore underestimate the impact of regional and local taxes that are not the result of any action by the sovereign national state. It can be very difficult to collect all the relevant data for sub-national level taxes when there are a large number of such entities; e.g. in the 26 cantons of Switzerland or the 50 states in the USA. Thus, it is often not done and much of the comparitive international data is just that, inter-national -- it includes the national-level sovereign tax data but does not fully account for all the sub-national tax components of national income. N2e (talk) 22:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Either I am missing something, or the Heritage Foundation gives no figures for tax burden in their 2010 report. There is still a ranking for "Fiscal Freedom," but there's no tax data. I suspect they are using the same sources as before, but do not want people to conclude that the tax burden in the United States is actually very low, compared to other industrialized nations, that would be off-message. Rather than relying on such an openly partisan source, we might be better off using figures from the OEDC. [4] --Forrest Johnson (talk) 21:17, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I was a little shocked to see such a clearly partisan source being used for this article. Anything which refers to tax revenues within the context of "Fiscal Freedom" is not likely to be a trustworthy source, IMO. Of course, without that, there's very little data in this article... and if that were the case, the article would probably be at risk for deletion. RobertM525 (talk) 22:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

In eyeballing the rates, it is probable that they are mix of gross tax rates and net tax rates, the difference (essentially) being social benefits (e.g. social security payments). If so, you need to get a consistent data base using a consistent methodology. Or, better, report both rates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.219.114.7 (talk) 16:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute

As at 21 July 2010 the article had a neutrality disputed tag. I searched this Talk page for the word neutrality. There is nothing on this page to support the tag, contrary to what the tag says. I am removing the tag as there is no support for its listing or remaining. dinghy (talk) 01:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Make List Sortable

Please make these tables the type with sort buttons at the top. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.61.116.32 (talk) 08:10, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The table has sort buttons at the top of the chart columns. I clarified the note at the top of the chart. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:59, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I am new to this but it can not seem correct. How can timor leste have a tax revenue of over 100% of their gdp? Also for the UK, it says 39%, but VAT revenue is supposed to be 87.7Bn, and the GDP is 2678Bn. So by this VAT revenue should be 8.4% of GDP, but on the VAT page it says it is 13.3% of GDP? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_Added_Tax_(United_Kingdom)#Revenue

incorrect data in source for Poland, different on wikipedia

I wonder what is the source for the 33,8% indicated for Poland?

Freedom Foundation says it's 20,1 (and they're very much wrong about it, I did my own math and it doesn't sum up or it's summed under some very weird assumptions). agnus (talk) 15:14, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

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New data for Europe

If anyone wants to update this list, at least the European part, here is the newer data: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Total_tax_revenue_by_country,_1995-2016_%28%25_of_GDP%29.png —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 14:44, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Whoever inserted footnote 4 messed up

Footnote 4, as of the present version of this article, covers seven OECD countries most of which are not members of the European Union, such as Norway, Japan, and South Korea (but also EU member Sweden). Unfortunately, that editor made a common mistake, confusing the OECD's "General government revenue," which is what s/he used, and "Total tax revenue," which can be expressed as a percentage of GDP in the interactive tables at stats.oecd.org, and which corresponds to the subject of this article. They are not the same thing.

For example, if you look at the source of Footnote 4, we find it is the OECD's list of general government revenue for 2015. Sweden comes in at 49.8%, Norway 54.9%,, Korea 33.6%, etc., just as shown in this article (though it appears that Mexico was slightly mis-transcribed or the data was revised by OECD since this edit was placed in the article). However, if you go to stats.oecd.org and navigate to "Public Sector, Taxation, and Market Regulation," and thence to "Revenue Statistics - OECD Countries - Comparative Tables," you will find out that the ratio of total tax revenue (i.e., all levels of government, all taxes) to GDP for 2015 comes to 43.1% for Sweden, 38.4% for Norway, and 25.2% for Korea. These are substantial differences, and quite a big one, 16.5 points, for Norway.

The problem? "General government revenue" is the wrong data for this article, because governments have sources of revenue besides taxes. Both pieces of information are important to people, but this article is about tax revenue/GDP, not general government revenue. I can't tell you the non-tax sources of revenue for the seven countries covered, except that Norway owns 67% of the national oil company, Equinor, which is why the difference is so large for Norway. 100.0.240.242 (talk) 00:58, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

This is right, data associated to footnote 4 is wrong and represent "General government revenue" instead of "total tax revenue" someone has to edit that 2A01:E0A:7D:D160:9D5E:5AC7:B287:94ED (talk) 21:29, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

sort buttons

I'm on mobile and I'm not allowed to use sort buttons?? This is discrimination!!!! Centarus72 (talk) 13:56, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

recent edits

Any major changes to the current classification should be proposed here. Archives908 (talk) 23:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

State companies

Is revenue of state companies included in the "tax" category or not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.249.41.163 (talk) 18:08, 25 February 2023 (UTC)