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Table E shows the relative share of tax resources attributed to the various sub-sectors of general government and how it has changed between 1975 and 2010. 

Federal and Regional countries

• In 2010, the share of central government receipts in the eight federal OECD countries varied from 31 per cent in Germany to 80 per cent in Australia and 81 per cent in Mexico. 
• Between 1975 and 2010 the share of federal government declined by about eight  percentage points in Belgium and the United States, and less rapidly in Canada and Germany.  
• The share of federal government increased in Austria and Switzerland by fourteen and five percentage points respectively.  There was little change in Australia and Mexico. 
• In 2010, the share of the states varied from 2 per cent (Austria and Mexico) and 5 per cent (Belgium) to 39 per cent (Canada) and the share of local government varied from 1 per cent (Mexico) to 16 per cent (Switzerland and the United States).   
• Of the seven federal countries with social security funds the share increased in five, the exceptions being Canada and Mexico where it remained steady.
• Spain is now classified as a Regional rather than a unitary country because of its highly decentralised political structure.  In 2010 the share of central government receipts was 35 per cent compared with 18 per cent for the regional government.   Between 1975 and 2010, the share of local government receipts increased from 4 to 10 per cent and the share of social security funds declined from 48 per cent to 37 per cent.

Unitary countries

• In unitary OECD countries the share of central government receipts in 2010 varied from 33 percent in Japan and 35 per cent in France to 93 per cent in New Zealand.
• The local government share varied from no more than 1 per cent in the Czech Republic and Greece to over 30 per cent in Sweden. 
• Between 1975 and 2010 there have been shifts to local government of 6 percentage points or more in five countries - Iceland, Italy, Korea, Portugal and Sweden and smaller increases in four others - Finland, France, Japan and the Netherlands.  Shifts of 6 percentage points or more in the other direction occurred in two countries - Norway and the United Kingdom.
• Between 1975 and 2010, there were increases in the share of social security funds of 7 or more percentage points in four countries - Finland, France, Japan and Korea and corresponding decreases in three others - Italy, Norway and Sweden.

Notes

• The guidelines for attributing these revenue shares to the different levels of government are based on the final version of the 2008 System of National Accounts. These guidelines are discussed in the special feature S.1 in the 2011 edition of OECD Revenue Statistics.
• The ‘supranational’ column of Table E reports taxes collected on behalf of the European Union (EU) by the twenty-one EU member states that are members of the OECD.  For years prior 1998, custom duties collected on behalf of the EU by national tax administrations of the EU member states are included under heading 5123.  From 1998 onwards, these custom duties are shown as a ‘memorandum’ item since they represent a tax imposed by the EU and collected by national administrations.  However they continue to be part of the aggregate revenue figures which represent all taxes imposed within the territory of EU member states. This approach ensures consistency of the time series, and ensures that the tax-to-GDP ratio measures are immune to changes in the relative share of customs duties in (1) the composition of EU financing resources and (2) national tax mixes of EU member states.  The amounts of customs duties concerned are shown in Table F.

Downloadable tables/figures

Table E. Attribution of tax revenues to sub-sectors of general government as percentage of total tax revenue

Table F. Customs duties collected on behalf of the European Union

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