How the global tax mix has shifted, 2000–2021
Across the 84 jurisdictions that report a full tax breakdown in every single year from 2000 to 2021, the average country's total tax take rose from 24.08% of GDP to 26.24% — up +2.16 percentage points. Income and social security taxes did most of that climbing; payroll and "other" taxes barely moved.
This is a balanced panel: the same 84 jurisdictions in every year, not “whoever happened to report that year”. Raw reporting coverage in the underlying OECD dataset climbs from 97 jurisdictions in 2000 to 128 in 2021, then falls to 94 in 2022 — a filing lag, not an event — so an average over every reporting jurisdiction each year would render that lag as a change in how the world taxes: a composition effect masquerading as a finding. Restricting to jurisdictions present in every year removes that artefact. 2021 is the last year shown for the same reason: extending the window to 2022 would cut the panel from 84 to 66 jurisdictions for one extra data point. Every figure here is an unweighted mean across countries — “the average country’s tax take” — not a global total and not GDP-weighted, so a large economy counts exactly the same as a small one.
Tax revenue by category, % of GDP (unweighted mean across the panel)
Y axis (mean tax revenue, % of GDP) runs 0%–15%, zero-baselined — not fitted to any one series — so categories of very different sizes stay honestly comparable. X axis 2000–2021.
2000 vs 2021, by category
| Category | 2000 | 2021 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taxes on income, profits and capital gains of individuals and corporations | 7.55% | 8.62% | +1.08pp |
| Social security contributions (SSC) | 5.04% | 5.72% | +0.68pp |
| Taxes on payroll and workforce | 0.31% | 0.29% | -0.02pp |
| Taxes on property | 1.06% | 1.22% | +0.16pp |
| Taxes on goods and services | 9.89% | 10.17% | +0.28pp |
| Other taxes | 0.22% | 0.21% | -0.01pp |
| Total tax revenue | 24.08% | 26.24% | +2.16pp |
The six categories sum to approximately the independently-computed total in both years — 24.06% vs 24.08% in 2000, 26.24% vs 26.24% in 2021 — which is a check on the aggregation, not a coincidence: it means the same balanced panel produced both the category breakdown and the total. Source: OECD Revenue Statistics (Global) tax structure by category, general government (sector S13).