Tax Burdens, Around the World: You Think Your Taxes are High? Read This!

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development today released new data on tax burdens in its 30 member countries. Across the organization, overall tax revenue totaled an estimated 35.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2008, down half a percentage point from 2007. The organization expects that tax burdens will fall further in 2009.

Denmark had the highest total tax revenue as a percentage of G.D.P., at 48.3 percent, followed by Sweden at 47.1 percent. Turkey and Mexico had the smallest tax burdens, at 23.5 percent and 21.1 percent, respectively.

In the United States, tax revenues represented 26.9 percent of total output last year.