Talk:List of sovereign states by tax revenue to GDP ratio

message: The USA entry appears to be grossly misleading. It appears to show just federal tax revenue, and the phrase "all levels" is incomprehensible. According to this link, http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history the true figure is closer to 35%. Given the natural interest in comparing the world's largest economy to other nations, to include only federal taxes makes a mockery of the whole table. In my opinion.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.221.200 (talk) 13:47, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Spending is about 35% and collection is less, hence the structural deficient. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:22, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment 

message: This article is inconsistent in its definition of taxes. Social contributions are NOT taxes, they are in mostly contributions by individuals to their own retirement in countries that have publically run pensions systems. Simply put: if contributions in the exact same amount were given to privately run retirement companies to offer the exact same services, they would not appear as "taxes" in this table. The fact is that listing social contributions as taxes is a misleading way to improve the economic stats of countries that have privately run pensions services in comparison to those who have public ones. It is true that the OECD uses this criterion, which makes it difficult to adopt another method, BUT this Wikipedia article should at least be consistent and open about the criterion adopted, which is not what happens, for example, in the "Total revenue from direct and indirect taxes given as share of GDP in 2017" map, which does not mention social contributions, despite the source of that map ("Our World in Data") identifying it as "Total revenue from social contributions, direct and indirect taxes given as share of GDP." (For some reason, whoever chose to use this illustration decided to remove "social contributions" from the description.)   
Please be open and consistent about the methodology used. 
Abueno97 (talk) 10:05, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistency in the definition of "tax" (vs "social contribution") 

message: The overall government tax rate as a percentage of GDP as reported in this table is misleading for several of the countries that do not have a unitary national tax system.  For example, in the US, the table misses the substantial state and local taxes that would add another 10% or more to the total tax load as a percentage of GDP; ditto for Switzerland which has contonal and local taxes in addition to the federal taxes.  While it may be difficult to find all the requisite data to make the table accurate, I would propose that we, at minimum, edit the article to reflect such shortcomings in the table.  We do not want WP to provide false information.  What do others think?  N2e (talk) 00:19, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see the previous talk section. All the percentages for all the nations are for total tax revenues (federal, state, and local). --Timeshifter (talk) 10:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

text: it seems fairly clear that the USA figures are only federal, making any comparison meaningless. See http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.221.200 (talk) 13:50, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

text: It may be that the figure for the US on the current page is underestimated, but it is **not** the case that it is solely the federal tax revenue. Total federal revenue for 2012, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget was $2.449 trillion, while the GDP was $15.864 trillion, for a revenue of only 15.4%.MeatBot (talk) 15:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tax rates are under-reported for some countries 

message: A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries.  Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 12:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: New Discussion

message: This 18:05, 22 January 2009 diff  removed many countries from the list. I suggest creating a column for the year, and putting back those countries. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I returned the countries that were removed. I also updated their numbers, and the reference link. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many countries removed unnecessarily 

message: I removed the rank column. It makes it very time consuming to add more countries to the chart. That may be why people have been adding additional countries in other sections of the article outside the chart. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rank column 

message: I put the chart in alphabetical order. It makes it easier to update the numbers without having to reorder the list. It also makes it easier to find the number for a specific country. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't that make it a "List of countries by name, with tax revenue as percentage of GDP"? I thought listing by tax revenue as percentage of GDP meant listing in the order of tax revenue etc. At least that was the information I was hoping for when I clicked the link.--Badmuthahubbard (talk) 12:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I clarified the info at the top. The note now points out clearly how to put the chart in numerical order. I hope it is clearer. Let me know. The article name focuses on the purpose of the chart. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabetical order 

message: User:CieloEstrellado added many nations to the chart. Thanks! 
I added 2 columns to the chart. So there are currently 3 sources. 1 for each column. Here are the sources:
*2009 Index of Economic Freedom, Heritage Foundation. Accessed on May 2, 2009. Note:  Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was obtained from the individual country pages, under the "Fiscal Freedom" section. The year for the data for each country is not mentioned, but the source claims to use the most recent data up to June 30, 2008.
*Revenue Statistics 1965-2007, 2008 Edition. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).  (book),  (ebook), and  (CD). Publication date: October 15, 2008. The data is found in Table A. Total tax revenue as percentage of GDP. By OECD nation, and by regional averages. 1975 to 2006. With provisional data also for 2007.
*Taxation Trends in the EU. 2008 edition. Taxation and Customs Union. European Commission. June 26, 2008 EUROSTAT (Statistical Office of the European Communities) press release: Taxation trends in the EU. EU27 tax ratio at 39.9% of GDP in 2006. See note 2 at the end for the meaning of the 2-letter country codes. See also: 2-Letter Country Codes.
The 3 sources are fairly close to each other for the tax percentages. Some of the slight differences may be due to different years being used. 
The only problem I see is with the Mexico numbers. One of the sources is wrong. I think it is the Heritage Foundation source. See the "fiscal freedom" section of the Mexico page. Compare its number with the OECD number. Maybe someone can email the Heritage Foundation and point out the problem. I think their tax percentage for Mexico is half of what it should be. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: How is the heritage foundation a neutral source?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.69.20 (talk) 04:47, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  3 sources. 1 for each column 

message: As at 21 July 2010 the article had a neutrality disputed tag. I searched this Talk page for the word neutrality. There is nothing on this page to support the tag, contrary to what the tag says. I am removing the tag as there is no support for its listing or remaining. dinghy (talk) 01:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality dispute 

message: Please make these tables the type with sort buttons at the top.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.61.116.32 (talk) 08:10, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The table has sort buttons at the top of the chart columns. I clarified the note at the top of the chart. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:59, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Make List Sortable 

message: I wonder what is the source for the 33,8% indicated for Poland?
Freedom Foundation says it's 20,1 (and they're very much wrong about it, I did my own math and it doesn't sum up or it's summed under some very weird assumptions). agnus (talk) 15:14, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  incorrect data in source for Poland, different on wikipedia 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: If anyone wants to update this list, at least the European part, here is the newer data: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Total_tax_revenue_by_country,_1995-2016_%28%25_of_GDP%29.png —Ynhockey (Talk) 14:44, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  New data for Europe 

message: Footnote 4, as of the present version of this article, covers seven OECD countries most of which are not members of the European Union, such as Norway, Japan, and South Korea (but also EU member Sweden). Unfortunately, that editor made a common mistake, confusing the OECD's "General government revenue," which is what s/he used, and "Total tax revenue," which can be expressed as a percentage of GDP in the interactive tables at stats.oecd.org, and which corresponds to the subject of this article. They are not the same thing.
For example, if you look at the source of Footnote 4, we find it is the OECD's list of general government revenue for 2015. Sweden comes in at 49.8%, Norway 54.9%,, Korea 33.6%, etc., just as shown in this article (though it appears that Mexico was slightly mis-transcribed or the data was revised by OECD since this edit was placed in the article). However, if you go to stats.oecd.org and navigate to "Public Sector, Taxation, and Market Regulation," and thence to "Revenue Statistics - OECD Countries - Comparative Tables," you will find out that the ratio of total tax revenue (i.e., all levels of government, all taxes) to GDP for 2015 comes to 43.1% for Sweden, 38.4% for Norway, and 25.2% for Korea. These are substantial differences, and quite a big one, 16.5 points, for Norway.
The problem? "General government revenue" is the wrong data for this article, because governments have sources of revenue besides taxes. Both pieces of information are important to people, but this article is about tax revenue/GDP, not general government revenue. I can't tell you the non-tax sources of revenue for the seven countries covered, except that Norway owns 67% of the national oil company, Equinor, which is why the difference is so large for Norway. 100.0.240.242 (talk) 00:58, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: This is right, data associated to footnote 4 is wrong and represent "General government revenue" instead of "total tax revenue" someone has to edit that 2A01:E0A:7D:D160:9D5E:5AC7:B287:94ED (talk) 21:29, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whoever inserted footnote 4 messed up 

message: I'm on mobile and I'm not allowed to use sort buttons?? This is discrimination!!!! Centarus72 (talk) 13:56, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  sort buttons 

message: Any major changes to the current classification should be proposed here. Archives908 (talk) 23:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  recent edits 

message: Is revenue of state companies included in the "tax" category or not?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.249.41.163 (talk) 18:08, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  State companies