Non-Tax Compulsory Payments as an Additional Burden on Labour Income

In 23 of the 34 OECD member countries, it is compulsory for employers and/ or employees to make additional payments, in addition to taxes and social security contributions, which increase the overall burden on labour income. These non-tax compulsory payments, which are typically paid to privatelymanaged funds, will either increase the employer’s labour costs or reduce the employee’s net take-home pay in a similar way to taxes, although they do not necessarily have the same behavioural impact. This paper discusses the different non-tax compulsory payments levied in OECD member countries and calculates “compulsory payment indicators”, which combine non-tax compulsory payments and taxes into an overall indicator of the burden of compulsory government regulation on labour income. The analysis shows that especially employers have to pay non-tax compulsory payments and that they have a considerable impact on the “tax wedge” rankings that are published in the OECD’s Taxing Wages Report.