Tax burden

Fiscal pressure, tax pressure or tax burden

The tax burden is the total amount of taxes collected by the public sector of a country with respect to GDP, and is therefore expressed as a % of GDP. The tax burden refers to all taxes, both direct and indirect, paid by both companies and individuals.

In short, the tax burden is the percentage of GDP that the citizens of a region spend on paying taxes.

Therefore, the tax burden formula is the division of total tax revenue by GDP.

TB= TR/GDP X 100

Where:

TB: Tax burden

TR: Tax collection = Tax revenue

The tax burden is measured with the actual tax collection, i.e., amounts that have not been collected, for example, due to tax evasion, are not taken into account.

A country's tax burden can obviously increase because of an increase in existing taxes or because new taxes are created, but there can also be an increase in the tax burden as a result of a rise in inflation in a situation of GDP stagnation.

In general, the most developed countries are the ones with the highest tax burden, as we can see in the tax revenue ranking table.

Related terms
Tax base | VAT | PIT Rate | Public sector | GDP | Inflation | Tax