Tax revenues in world’s advanced economies continue to increase. The latest edition of the recently published OECD’s “Revenue Statistics” report reveals that the average relationship between taxes and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the OECD slightly increased in 2017, standing at 34.2%, compared to 34% in the previous year.
This average percentage is the highest since the calculation began in 1965. Previous levels were given in 2000 (33.8%) and in 2007 (33.6%), in addition to 2016 (34%).
The country with a large percentage of taxes paid in relation to GDP was France, with 46.2%, ahead of Denmark (46%), Belgium (44.6%), Sweden (44%), Finland (43.3%) and Italy (42.4%).
Spain was at the middle of the table, with a percentage of 33.7%, half a point below the OECD average (34.2%), and a half point more than in the previous year (33.2%)
The five countries with the lowest taxes were South Korea (26.9%), Turkey (24.9%), Ireland (22.8%), Chile (20.2%) and Mexico (16.2%).
In 19 of the 34 OECD countries that offered data for 2017 the taxes / GDP levels went up, while in the other 15 they dropped.
The countries where the relation between taxes and GDP increased the most by 2017 were Israel (1.4%) and the United States (1.3%).
The following graph, offered by the OECD, shows the evolution for all countries from 2000 to 2017.
