TAXES

TAXES Income and profits taxes account for the largest share of tax revenues in OECD countries—35% on average. However, the shares of both consumption taxes (32%) and social-security contributions (25%) are growing. Of the countries in our chart, Ireland and Norway (as well as eight other, mainly poorer, OECD countries) already raise more of their taxes from consumption levies than from any other source. Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland rely most heavily on social-security payments. European governments still take a higher share of their citizens' incomes than those of America and Japan. Still, in 1995 OECD countries' average tax revenues as a share of GDP fell for the first time in the 1990s.