OECD Tax Policy Studies Tax Burdens Alternative Measures

In response to growing demand by policy-makers, various measures to assess tax burdens of households, individual firms and the business sector as a whole have been developed. This study reviews some of the most common measures used to gauge tax burdens of households and corporations. In addition, it provides some illustrative numbers from various sources on tax rates and tax burdens in OECD countries. The study concludes that all current measures reviewed have at least some important shortcomings. Results based on these measures should therefore be interpreted with their limitations in mind, and judged with due caution when used to address policy questions.