{"id":11397,"date":"2023-09-19T10:33:35","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T09:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxpolicy.org.uk\/?p=11397"},"modified":"2023-09-23T10:33:17","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T09:33:17","slug":"oecd2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heacham.neidles.com\/2023\/09\/19\/oecd2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the UK over-taxed or under-taxed?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We now have the latest OECD tax data, showing tax as a percentage of GDP across the developed world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UK looks rather average:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If we order by personal tax (income tax and national insurance etc), we see that UK income tax\/NI is a somewhat lower % of GDP than average:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If we order by property\/wealth tax, the UK surprisingly raises one of the highest %s of GDP in the world (although we should be careful about comparisons here; please see caveats below):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Corporate tax, the UK raises a bit less than average (although this is before the increase from 19% to 25%, which will put the UK in the top quartile):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another way to look at the data is each tax as a % of overall tax revenues. Then the UK looks rather unexceptional, raising proportionately a bit less in personal tax than most of the world, but a bit more in property tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So many of the loudest voices in the tax debate are wrong. The UK is not horribly over-taxed. Wealth in the UK is not horribly under-taxed. We have a pretty typical tax system. We could tax a bit more, or tax a bit less, and there are certainly plenty of aspects of the system we could<\/a> and should<\/a> improve. But the case for revolutionary change often relies upon an inaccurate picture of how things are now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data is from the wonderful OECD global revenue statistics database<\/a> – all I’ve done is take the many different taxes and push them into categories. The spreadsheet is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

How’s it changed over time?<\/h2>\n\n\n

Like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Or, for the non-OECD countries:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The code that generated these is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

Caveats<\/h2>\n\n\n

There are, inevitably, plenty of caveats:<\/p>\n\n\n\n