WASHINGTON: Mexico and Chile had the lowest tax-to-gross domestic product ratios among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries last year, with tax burdens of 19.7 percent and 20.2 percent, respectively, followed by Korea (24.3 percent), and the United States (25.4 percent), a new report from the OECD says.
The average tax burden in OECD countries, relative to GDP, increased by 0.4 percentage points in 2013, to 34.1 percent, compared with 33.7 percent in 2012 and 33.3 percent in 2011. Historically, tax-to-GDP ratios rose through the 1990s, to a peak OECD average of 34.3 percent in 2000. They fell back slightly between 2001 and 2004, but then rose again between 2005 and 2007 before falling back following the crisis.In 2013, the tax burden rose in 21 of the 30 countries for which data is available, and fell in the remaining 9. The number of countries with increasing and decreasing ratios was the same as that seen in 2012, indicating a continuing trend toward higher revenues. The largest increases in 2013 occurred in Portugal, Turkey, Slovak Republic, Denmark, and Finland. The largest falls were in Norway, Chile, and New Zealand.
