The fiscal pressure in Portugal fell in 2023 to 35.8% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), compared to 36.0% the previous year, placing it above the average of 33.9% of OECD countries. the organization announced this Thursday-Friday.
According to provisional data from the annual report on tax revenue published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the tax burden in Portugal stood at 35.8% in 2023, compared to 36.0% in 2022, the 35.2% in 2021 and 30.9% in 2000, exceeding the OECD average of 33.9% last year, where the weight of taxes decreased slightly from 34.0% in 2022.
Here, Portugal appears in position 16 among the 36 OECD countries whose data for 2023 were available, the country with the highest tax burden being France, with 43.8%, while the lowest was recorded in Mexico, with 17.7%.
This represents a difference of 26.1 percentage points, the smallest difference between extremes since at least 2000, after the difference narrowed by 5.2 percentage points since 2019.
Among OECD countries, the tax-to-GDP ratio increased in 2023 from the previous year in 18 of the 36 countries for which preliminary data is available, decreased in 17 countries and remained unchanged in one.
Looking ahead to 2022, the largest increase occurred in Luxembourgwhose tax/GDP ratio increased 2.7 percentage points, ahead of Colombia with 2.6 percentage points, while the largest falls occurred in Chile (-3.2 percentage points) and South Korea (-3.1 points percentages).
In the long run, OECD data shows that 29 countries recorded greater fiscal pressures in 2023 than in 2010with the largest increases in Japan (+8.2 percentage points), Slovakia (7.6 percentage points) and Greece (7.5 percentage points), while increases of more than five percentage points since 2010 have also been seen in Korea , Spain, Mexico and Portugal. and Luxembourg.
In contrast, the tax-to-GDP ratio decreased in 2023 from the 2010 level in nine countries, with the largest reductions in Ireland (-5.8 percentage points) and Hungary (-2.6 percentage points).
In 2022, the last year for which final tax revenue data is available for all OECD countries, Social Security contributions accounted for the largest share of tax revenue in the organization, at just under a quarter ( 24.8%) on average, a value that amounted to 28.3% in Portugal.
IRS revenue represented the second largest proportion, at 23.6%, while in Portugal the second largest proportion of tax revenue came from VAT collected (26.0% of the total, compared to 20.8% overall OECD), IRS revenues rank third. , with 19.4%.
The other consumption taxes generated represented 10.8% of the total in the OECD and 12.2% in Portugal.
As for the IRC, it represented on average 12.0% of total tax revenues in 2022 in the organization’s countries, compared to 9.3% in Portugal.
Between 2021 and 2022, the average weight of income tax revenue (IRS and CIT combined) in the total tax revenue of OECD countries increased by 1.4 percentage points to 36.5%, and the weight of IRC in total tax revenue increased during this period, while the IRS burden decreased.
In 2022, the average weight of Social Security contributions in the average OECD tax structure decreased by 0.8 percentage points, while the weight of tax revenue from taxes on goods and services decreased by 0.4 percentage points.
Source: Observadora
