It depends on how you look at the statistics. Australia relies heavily on income tax, collecting 40% of tax revenue from personal income. That makes Australia the fourth highest taxing nation for personal tax in the OECD – but we were second highest in 2019 if that makes you feel better. But, if you are looking at take home pay there is a separate measure for that. The Employee tax on labour income looks at our take home pay once tax is taken out and benefits have been added back in. This shows that the take home pay of an average single worker is 77% of their gross wage compared to the OCED average of 75.4%. For the average worker with a family (one married earner with 2 children), once tax and family benefits are taken into account, the Australian take home pay average is 84.1% compared to the OECD average of 85.9%. All of this means that Australia is a high taxing nation but returns much of that in the form of means tested benefits.
Australia also does not have social security contributions like other nations. These contributions represent an average of 27% of the total tax take for OECD nations.
And, because Australia has a progressive tax system, the pain of taxation is felt more by higher income earners. The top 11.6% of Australian income earners contribute 55.3% of the tax revenue from personal income tax.
With the final round of legislated income tax cuts due to commence on 1 July 2024, this should reduce the overall dependence on personal income tax relative to corporate and other taxes.
So, do we personally pay more tax than other nations? If you are a high-income earner the answer is likely to be yes. If not, the answer is no.
It’s all how you read it.
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