Four days ago, I shared OECD data on demographic trends in developed nations and wrote about how those trends have led to some changes for government old-age retirement systems (though, sadly, not to reforms of America’s underwater Social Security program).

That same OECD report included a section on changes in tax policy.

It included several charts worth sharing and we’ll start with this data showing tax burdens as a share of GDP as of 2024. It probably won’t be a surprise to see that the four worst nations are Denmark, France, Austria, and Italy.

The best nations (setting aside the less-developed nations that are part of the OECD for reasons of political correctness) are Ireland, South Korea, the United States, and Switzerland.*

The revenue section also includes a chart on what happened to tax burdens over the previous 10 years.

Poland, Mexico, Lithuania, and South Korea have moved the most in the wrong direction. A few countries now have lower aggregate tax burdens, led by Ireland, Hungary, Belgium, and Italy.*

One bit of good news is that there’s been a several-decade trend for lower corporate tax rates, something I’ve written about on a few occasions.

Though there’s been a bit of movement in the wrong direction this decade, presumably as a result of the OECD’s despicable efforts to create a business tax cartel.

I’ll close with a depressing chart.

It’s only about data from the United Kingdom, but it shows how politicians can be big winners from inflation if tax brackets and thresholds are not indexed for inflation.

The good news is that Reagan fixed this problem in the United States thanks to his 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act (though the U.S. still needs to index the capital gains tax to protect people from paying extra tax because of inflation).

But I won’t be surprised if more governments copy the sneaky tax-hiking approach of the United Kingdom (a policy put in place by the so-called Conservative Party).

Of course, there will all sorts of proposed tax increases in the future if governments don’t get serious about restraining the growth of government. Including in the United States.

* As explained in this column, figures for Ireland should be taken with a grain of salt.