On 30 November 2022 the OECD published Revenue Statistics 2022. The publication sets out the statistics of tax revenue for 2021 which indicate that tax revenues were recovering after the crisis caused by the pandemic.

The publication classifies taxes by reference to the tax base, such as income, profits and capital gains; payroll; property; goods and services; and other taxes. Also, compulsory social security contributions paid to the government are treated as taxes. There is also an analysis of tax revenues by level of government.

The average OECD tax-to-GDP ratio increased by 0.6 percentage points to 34.1% in 2021, and according to the preliminary data tax revenues increased by 12.8% on average in the OECD countries, while the GDP increased by 10.5%.

Tax-to-GDP ratios of OECD countries in 2021 varied widely, ranging from 16.7% in Mexico to 46.9% in Denmark. The average OECD tax-to-GDP ratio went up from 33.6% in 2020 to 34.1% in 2022, with an increase in the tax-to-GDP ratio recorded in 24 of the 36 countries surveyed. The largest increase was in Norway where the ratio rose by 3.4 percentage points owing to an increase in corporate income tax revenues. This was mainly due to a rise in revenues from petroleum extraction following a fall during the pandemic.

Impact of the pandemic on revenues

The publication contains a special feature on tax revenues in the second year of the pandemic, examining the impact of the economic recovery and tax policy on tax revenues in 2020 and 2021. The analysis considers which types of tax made the largest contribution to the increase in the average tax-to-GDP ratio of OECD countries in 2021.

The OECD countries prioritised promotion of economic recovery in 2021; and began to withdraw the measures supporting households and businesses in the pandemic. Changes were made to labour taxation to facilitate economic growth and increase equity, while the corporate income tax measures were targeted towards facilitating investment and innovation, including the green economy. As a result of the continued growth of e-commerce during the pandemic, e-invoicing and digital reporting requirements were introduced for value added tax (VAT) in 2021.

The analysis concludes that the increase in tax revenues in the OECD in 2021 was mainly due to a recovery of tax revenues from the corporate income tax and VAT. Revenues from personal income tax remained unchanged as a share of GDP and revenue from social security contributions declined slightly. Also, the revenues from excise taxes declined slightly in 2020 and 2021, while property taxes remained unchanged as a share of GDP.

The publication also examines the tax structure in OECD countries, taking 2020 as the reference because this is the latest year for which final data is available on all the OECD countries. Social security contributions brought in the largest share of tax revenues for OECD countries in 2020, accounting on average for 26.6% of revenues received. The personal income tax raised on average 24.1% of total tax revenues and VAT raised 20.2% of revenues. Other consumption taxes raised 11.9% of revenue and the corporation tax raised on average 9.0% of tax revenues
in the OECD in 2020. Property taxes contributed 5.7% and the remainder of the tax revenue was brought in by residual taxes.