Talk:List of countries by tax rates - Wikipedia


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Does the *Max* tax rate column refer to the top marginal tax rate (i.e., that rate charged only on income *over* the highest threshold) or does it refer to the highest effective tax rate (i.e., this is the rate the highest earners actually pay for their whole income)? The table should make it clear. It would be VERY misleading if the top marginal tax rate were thought to be the top effective rate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.27.162.152 (talk) 21:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Corporate income tax in Belgium is actually much lower than what's reported due to the practice of "notional interests deduction", a deduction on taxable corporate income for equity-financed companies, based on the idea that if debt-financed companies can deduce their borrowing costs from their taxable income, equity-financed companies should be allowed to have a similar system. This web site has the average effective rate at 24-27%, but it actually is even much much lower, some recent estimates put it at 10%. Also, the source link for many of these reported rates is broken. 130.104.175.242 (talk) 06:33, 3 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

While this might be true I know some companies who do not get subsidies or have big balancesheets pay the full amount. 81.82.197.2 (talk) 10:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

As of 6 April 2010 the UK's top marginal rate of tax is 60 percent, applied to income between £100,000 and £112,950. This apparent departure from the usual graduated tax system arises because of the progressive withdrawal of personal allowance of £6,475 at a rate of £1 per £2 of income between those two figures. The marginal rate then drops to 40 percent until income reaches the 50 percent margin threshold of £150,000. In spite of the fact that it takes a small calculation to arrive at this figure, it is indisputable - and has been widely recognised (http://www.tisco.co.uk/site/487/Personal_Allowance_Changes.aspx, http://www.kpmg.eu/budget/13925.htm ) and numerous others - that the UK does in fact have a salary band in which the marginal rate of income tax is 60 percent and the neutral position should be to present this as the upper figure instead of 50 percent. 118.210.61.163 (talk) 05:38, 6 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Although (at the time of writing) the highest rate has fallen from 50% to 45%, is true that the effective marginal 60% you described still applies for earnings between £100,000 and twice the personal allowance (a figure that is the same for most but not everyone) for the reasons you correctly describe. However, this is due to an effect on tax exemption rather then the tax rate itself. If we were going to be thorough in comparison then the there are higher effective rates of tax in the UK such as the gradual removal of child benefit on bands of earnings between £50,000 and £60,000. In many circumstances in plenty of jurisdictions around the world earnings over a certain amount may lead to the removal of something else that could be an effective tax of up to 100% of earnings. If we take a thorough approach to its logical conclusion then every nuance of each tax system would be included, and even if this were possible, the result would be a truly incomprehensible table. The table is simply to produce a ready reference and clearly would not be regarded as anything beyond a blunt instrument for comparison purposes. Dainamo (talk) 22:48, 17 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Dear collegues! If I understand this "graduate rate" thing right (I'm not a native speaker and, surely, no economist, either :)), it appears that you are trying to blend corporate AND individual income taxes together. Don't you think this is a bit confusing and still doesn't really say how much taxes exactly people (or corporations) pay around the world? How about we create separate lists within this article for corporate income taxes, individual income taxes and other taxes? What do you think? KNewman 14:01, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

At least in the U.S. the graduated bit means that people with different incomes pay different rate. It has nothing to do with businesses. Rmhermen 21:05, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

There are some discrepancies here. For all the graduated rates, some are quoting the lowest rate as the tax on the very first dollar (usualy 0%) and some on the first taxable dollar. For example Canada is given as 16%, when in fact the first dollar you earn is taxed at 0%, same as most places. Can we agree to either a) quote the rate for the lowest taxable dollar - this would probably be more useful since almost everywhere has a 0% tax bracket - or b) put 0% as the lowest rate for everywhere that has a tax-free allowance. DJ Clayworth 19:54, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Can we either: change this to Income tax rates around the world, or include other taxes? It is quite misleading as it is, even if factually acurate.

BTW the individial tax rate in Saudi Arabia is currently 0% not 20%.

Individual income tax in Australia is 0-45% source Australian Tax office (http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc=/content/12333.htm&mnu=5053&mfp=001) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.161.222 (talk) 08:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thanks - I've made the adjustment, although I did not put Saudi Arabia at 0%. I listed the 2.5% Zakat. The 20% was for non-residents, so I clarified that. Morphh (talk) 14:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

(I am an expat living in Saudi Arabia for the past 8 years, there is absolutely no tax on individuals (income tax), and the Zakat tax (2.5%) is a "religious duty" to be observed by people, the government never enforce it on individuals, they are not required to fill any forms or present any kind of proof that they did pay the Zatak tax, however it is only enforced on companies, also there is no difference between resident / non-resident tax obligations, it 0% for all, i personally know expats who have been working here for 3+ years, they are here on a "visit" visa, not Residents, yet paying no tax at all. please fix the numbers you have 14:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC) )

Needs a column for Capital gains tax.


Hello... I have changed the corporate tax for Denmark, as it from 2005 is 28%, not 30%. I'll see if there is other places too, where it needs to be changed. http://www.tax.dk/artikler/selskabsskat.htm --62.107.138.48 18:09, 24 January 2007 (UTC)Liv, DenmarkReply

Isn't United States 35% and changing to 30.5% as part of the Tax Reduction Act of 2007? The corporate rate in this article is 39.3% for the United States. Netdragon (talk) 21:09, 27 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Dear Netdragon: As of now, the tax rate is not changing to 30.5%. The "Tax Reduction Act of 2007" to which you refer has not been enacted into law -- at least not yet. It's just a proposal: House of Representatives bill 3970 (H.R. 3970). The only major action on this bill was in October 2007, when it was referred to committee. See [1] as of 27 Dec. 2007. To be law, it would have to be passed by both houses of Congress and sent to the President, etc. This bill hasn't even been voted on yet. Yours, Famspear (talk) 02:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

A column for payroll taxes should also be added. In some countries this tax is very significant. For example, Sweden has a payroll tax of 43%+ depending on income. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.89.80.119 (talk) 20:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

I agree. I have been looking for payroll tax rates and caps in various countries, along with any varitions for self-employed individuals. However, unfortunately it seems that it can be quite hard to find for some reason

the articles about Flat tax and Income tax#Countries with no personal income tax have information contradicting (or missing) the current list on Tax rates around the world:

missing:

  • Georgia - flat tax
  • Andorra, Vanuatu, Mauritius and others - 0%

contradicting:

  • Saudi Arabia - 20% vs. 0%
  • Serbia, Lithuania, Ukraine - flat vs. non-flat

These four lists need attention to be synchronized:

Alinor 18:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

As for Georgia, Serbia, Lithuania, Ukraine: there are references to outside sources confirming that these countries have flat tax systems on the Flat tax adoption around the world page. The other pages are flat-out (no pun intended) (well, pun intended, you win) wrong and need to be updated. As for Andorra, Vanuatu, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia: I have no clue. I deliberately refrained from explicitly listing zero-tax countries on the Flat tax adoption around the world page, because they are hard to find information about, and there already was a page dedicated to those. Many of the zero-tax countries are either very small or isolated and it can be tricky to find out much about them. Sjeng 15:25, 23 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
Did this ever get sorted out? Morphh (talk) 14:12, 19 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Re Greece: this article says "no distinction is made between "true" taxes, that pay for the government's general budget, and fees paid for specific social benefits such as health insurance". But the figures for Greece *do* make this distinction, having ignored the substantial social security payments (which are effectively additional taxation) of 16 per cent for an employee and 28.06% for an employer. So an employee's maximum taxation is in fact 40+16=56 per cent, not simply 40 per cent, making Greece one of the heaviest taxed countries in Europe. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Greece#Social_Security_Tax —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.123.86.204 (talk) 11:39, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Paraguay appears none in the list of countries with PIT nor with non PIT.....error —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.73.96.2 (talk) 18:30, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Even though it is a good tidbit, I really don’t think ancient Rome should be on this list. I think that would be more appropriate for a page concerning the history of taxation if one existed. Though there is not a lot of history of taxes books out there, from what I have read I believe Rome had very low taxes for most of its history. I believe Rome did not see anything around the 90% mark until the very end of the empire, Emperor Diocletian if my memory serves me right. Like most pre-20th century civilizations for the most part taxes were much lower than they are today. I think it might be a little deceptive showing their rates over such a long period if the rates rarely achieved such extreme heights. Just a thought.--Scott (talk) 03:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's pretty meanignless to say an empire - with a multiplicity of systems and distinctive periods - had a 0%-90% tax rate, supposedly averaged over 1000 years. The same is true of Europe, for instance, yet asserting that for Europe would be close to meanignless, even if true in some complex and obscure emprical sense. (Leon Louw) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.243.195.190 (talk) 09:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

FYI, I tried to format worldwide-tax.com into a proper reference and it got kicked back as being on the WP:BLACKLIST. We may want to consider a different reference as this may not satisfy our reliable source policy. I also noted how similar our table is to their table and I'm wondering if we may have some copyright issues. Morphh (talk) 20:27, 06 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Is there a reason for it being blacklisted? Wikipedia treats it like spam, but I don't see how the site could be spammy. I admit I used the site for convenience (neat table), even though we should probably use FITA for all the countries to save us some trouble. ☆ CieloEstrellado 21:09, 6 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
It was probably added as at some point because someone was adding this web site to every external link section of tax articles. Morphh (talk) 21:14, 06 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

It is 10.3% in California for Personal Income Taxes. (for those earning more than $1m/year). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.178.26.108 (talk) 10:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Some of the sources used for this article are unreliable. Tax rates change frequently, and I suggest that any source which has not been updated in the last 12 months should not be used. The FITA site seems particularly out of date. The UK rates on that site (I am from the UK) are showing the 2002 rates! I suggest that before using any source from outside the country concerned you see what it says about the rates in your own country as a test of its reliability.Mhockey (talk) 15:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

One would ideally consult with the Tax Office web site of each country, but not all of them speak English or have English language versions, so you have to use secondary sources. ☆ CieloEstrellado 15:55, 30 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. If you can get the info from the tax authority's own website, that will almost always be the best source. But if you have to use secondary sources, do not take them at face value, they are of varying quality. It is important to look at how often they are updated. Mhockey (talk) 20:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Can we all agree that the starting rate for personal income tax should be the starting rate of taxable income, after exemptions, which will not be 0% except when the country has no personal income tax? That was the suggestion of DJ Clayworth above (see #Graduate rate), and it must be right. Mhockey (talk) 14:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

I disagree. Some countries tax everyone and some don't. The only way to know is if the minimum is 0%. That means some aren't getting taxed. ☆ CieloEstrellado 03:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
The UK taxes everyone, so in that case a 0% is inaccurate. ☆ CieloEstrellado 03:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Every individual resident of the UK has an exemption, so if your income is less than the exemption your tax is nil. But I think that's the same in every country - at least, I am not aware of any country which taxes everyone from the first $1 of income. If that's the case, then the starting rate in every country could be said to be 0%, but that does not seem to me to be very useful. (Corporate income tax is different - most countries tax companies from the first $1 of income.) Mhockey (talk) 17:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

I agree, 0% shouldn't be listed in mosts cases. In Canada there is a deduction of about 10000$, which means we pay 0% on the first 10 000$ earned. However, the lowest tax rate is 15% at the federal level, and 4% at the provincial level, and that's what included in the table. I don't think we should change this to 0%. --zorxd (talk) 15:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

The chart is such a war of political interests as to be useless. The US corporate tax rate is 35%, period. Deductions may bring that down but nevertheless the "tax rate" is 35%. If you want, list a separate column in the table showing possible deductions for every country. As it stands, the politicizing of the chart has done nothing but make it a source of misinformation as well as impossible to sort. 24.126.30.61 (talk) 03:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

The first band of unearned income is taxed at 10% rather than the 20% in the article. And the first £5,435 of income has no tax at all.

Also national insurance is another income tax, which should possibly be included in the total. Comrinec (talk) 15:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Many countries have nearly-free health care. So in countries like the U.S., the money people have to spend on health insurance should be counted as a tax if you want to compare countries. This makes the U.S. citizen about the most heavily taxed in the world. If you leave the country, derive all your income from other countries, and renounce your citizenship, the IRS considers it tax evasion that is subject to interest and penalties. U.S. citizens are "free to leave" the country in a physical sense, but not in a financial sense. You owe the motherland 20% to 50% of your work for life! We used to call that slavery. The civil war decided once and for all that leaving the country is not allowed. The IRS has decided that it applies to the individual as well. No American will disagree with this slavery-for-life imposed by the IRS because that might mean the ones remaining will have to pay more in taxes if everyone starts leaving. But imagine a world where you can choose your own country. Where countries would have to compete with each other in order to attract citizens. 24.214.120.227 (talk) 20:46, 25 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

The money you pay for health care that the government does not provide you is not a tax. It is certainly something to consider if you are deciding what country you want to live in, but that is not the subject of this article. That is why I am removing the following sentences from the article:
"Of course, services provided by governments in return for taxation also vary, making comparisons all the more difficult. For example, in many European nations, government sponsored national health care provision is paid for from taxation, while in other countries health care is normally paid for with private insurance."
To compare tax rates, you just compare tax rates. Comparing the net societal benefit of taxation systems is of course a different (and even more complex) matter. Quux0r (talk) 04:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)Reply
If you benefit from a country's tax supported infrastructure, such as using roads, tax supported transportation or subsidized shipping, tax supported utilities, subsidy supported industries, subsidy supported food production, etc., no matter what country you're in, you should be paying taxes to support your usage. If you move overseas and "give up your citizenship" without becoming a citizen of the country you're living in, you are trying to game the system and live a parasitic existence off of other people's tax burden. The United States IRS is not alone in continuing to tax you, pretty much every industrial nation will do the same to individuals who try to game the system the same way. 76.174.173.20 (talk) 16:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
If you earn money legally in the country where you live, you usually have to pay taxes there - even if you're not a citizen of that country - and you usually don't pay taxes in the country that you're a citizen of if you don't live there. So, moving overseas usually means moving into another country's tax system, and if you still earn money in your old country you should, in most cases, pay taxes for that income in your new country.Thomas Blomberg (talk) 11:15, 6 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

The graphs in this section list the US by the highest possible rates, making it appear that taxes are much higher than they really are. The graphs should show the average rates for the US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.253.69.116 (talk) 02:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure that would change the relationship much as you would have to do the same thing to every country. You also have to consider the U.S. may be a combination of local, state, & fed. Morphh (talk) 2:18, 07 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of misleading world income tax graph here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:PIT_in_World_Barry_Kent.png —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzzzz9 (talk • contribs) 11:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Contradiction of Graph and List within the article: The Graph shows that in Switzerland the Personal Income Tax exceeds Corporate. The List shows the reverse! Can anyone explain this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.152.131.149 (talk) 22:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

I wonder if the graph includes the local and state/province taxes, or only the national. It would also be interesting to see indirect taxes, such as sales taxes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by C9900 (talk • contribs) 09:54, 26 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

There is excellent source material from KPMG. I'm too lazy to incorporate this into the main article, however I will point you guys to the location. It's located here:

Thanks for all your work. It's greatly appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.96.25 (talk) 22:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)Reply


Italy

Corporate taxes in Italy are Ires (27,5%) and Irap (3,9%). The total is 31,4%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.16.140.133 (talk) 21:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

http://www.kpmg.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/Corporate-and-Indirect-Tax-Rate-Survey-2008v2.pdf page 22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.16.140.133 (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

The VAT rate in Italy are 20%, 10% and 4% http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/rates/vat_rates_en.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.50.116.247 (talk) 19:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

If you sort the list by, say, individual tax, you expect to find the countries ranked according to the amount of income tax payable in them. However, the fact that some countries apply a flat rate and others a sliding scale makes the order misleading. For example, various countries in Eastern Europe apply flat rate taxes of around 10%-15%, yet the impression given by the table is that the income tax burden is greater there than in countries like the Germany and the US, where it is up to 40%. In fact, given that different countries define what is taxable in different ways (in the UK, for example, your first 6000 or so GBP isn't taxed at all, for example), and have different tax brackets, the sort results are virtually meaningless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.78.204.36 (talk) 21:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

They're not meaningless if you take into account that the article is about tax rates, and not effectives rates paid. ConorBrady.ie (caint) 09:42, 6 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

I propose that in the VAT / GST / Sales tax column only the standard rate be included. The reasoning for this is that in the Income tax column, not every rate is indicated for every country. This is at best an overview article: not every bit of information will be there for each country. In the Income tax column, there is no indication of tax relief or bands, which are essential for calculating the actual tax. Likewise, the VAT / GST / Sales tax column needn't go as in depth as giving all the reduced rates a country may have.

Or, at the very least, the labels beside the reduced rates specifying what they're for should be removed and replaced with something like: 20% (standard) or 10% (reduced). No need to tell that it's specifically for cinema tickets and hotel rooms. ConorBrady.ie (caint) 09:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

I adjusted the 2.9%-15.3% to note that it's regressive, even though the maximum is presently 13.3%. However state payroll taxes (such as SDI) are ignored, and Federal and state unemployment taxes are completely ignored. The numbers are more complicated, and I can't estimate the range of state unemployment taxes. Any ideas for improvement? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:14, 23 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

"Regressive" in taxation means it goes lower as you earn more money, the United States has no Regressive taxes.76.174.173.20 (talk) 16:29, 25 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Wrong. Aside from some credit and adjustment phaseouts, leading to an significant increase in the effective tax rate in an (often narrow) band of income, FICA tax rates (employer + employee, or self-employed) start at 13.3% at low incomes and reduce to 2.9% at high incomes (I don't remember the exact cutoff, but it's over $100,000 in annual wages), and federal unemployment tax is 6.2% for the first $7,000 per employee. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:53, 25 November 2011 (UTC)Reply

Top federal marginal corporate tax rate in the US is 35% according to every source I can find including other sources in wikipedia -- except for this one, which has it listed at 38%. What gives? I'm changing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.197.145 (talk) 06:11, 22 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

I propose this article be renamed, to bring it in line with other list articles. I think List of countries by tax rates would be appropriate. ConorBrady.ie (caint) 12:55, 9 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I agree. I will rename the article at the end of 48 hours if no one raises any objections. Thanks. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
Page moved to "List of countries by tax rates". There are numerous articles linking to the previous title, so I will start modifying the links using AWB after 48 hours from now. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 20:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Many of the tax rates citations are two years out of date and sorely in need of updating so that this page remains accurate. Perhaps someone who knows more wiki-fu than me can get this put on a to do list or something like that. 121.222.8.148 (talk) 12:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

When I click on the little triangles over corporate tax, the sorting I get is inconsistent. I realize some of the problem might be due to ranges, but 9-5-38.5-35 makes no sense.Kdammers (talk) 05:07, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

+1 It sorts alphabetically which makes first digit all important hence 1 before 200 before 33 Erik Zachte (talk) 23:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

This table is too complex. In my country there is a municipality tax which differs rather much depending of where you live. Then there is the regional level tax, which mainly cover healthcare but also public transport and culture. The national tax is first a tiny amount, like 20 Euro or 30 Dollar, but when the income reaches a certain level, percentages are used - progressively from around 5 to 25 %. On top of that comes either a funeral fee - or (for members of the national Church) depending of chuch region, but little short of 1%. However not all income (wages) are needed to declare for taxation. And if You make a personal employment this sum can be deducted. Like I pay my neighbour to vacuum clean once a week (and repport this to taxation authorities) the wages I pay my meighbour is deducted from my income. There are in extremely many possibilities to change your tax, within certain limits. The state mainly lives on the VAT and other taxes of for instance petrol, alcohol, tobacco etc [VAT is then put on top of the extra tax products !!!] And certain things are no longer called tax but fees, my point is the table isn't enough to make fair comparisions between nations Boeing720 (talk) 09:59, 24 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

In order to make the table cleaner and more easily sortable, can I suggest to editors that they put any notes in the notes section under the table, rather than adding notes within the table. Whats new? (talk) 07:50, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

I agree with this. This would make it much more reader friendly and informative Iady391 | Talk to me 11:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

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