Tax Freedom Day For Workers in The European Union
A 2010 study published in L'Anglophone, a Brussels newspaper, compared the tax burdens of "Average Joes" in each of the 27 EU member states and projected the Tax Freedom Day for workers earning a typical wage. Income taxes, social security contributions (by the employee and the employer) and projected VAT contributions were included in the calculations.
Regarding the discrepancy between their calculation of August 3 as the typical Belgian worker's Tax Freedom Day and that of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), L'Anglophone's authors wrote: " figures count revenue from all taxes (including those on corporate profits, petrol, cigarettes, &c.) and thus present a more complete picture of the country’s total tax burden," adding that it is "an average applied to all Belgians – not all Belgian workers; in 2008, less than half of Belgium’s population (4.99 million working out of 10.67 million citizens) was legally working. Consequently, a huge share of Belgium’s tax burden is borne by the working population."
| Country | Day of year | % burden | Date of year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | 191 | 52.2% | 10 July |
| Belgium | 215 | 58.5% | 3 August |
| Bulgaria | 145 | 39.5% | 25 May |
| Cyprus | 72 | 19.4% | 13 March |
| Czech Rep. | 165 | 44.9% | 14 June |
| Denmark | 168 | 45.7% | 17 June |
| Estonia | 150 | 40.7% | 30 May |
| Finland | 166 | 45.2% | 15 June |
| France | 207 | 56.4% | 26 July |
| Germany | 200 | 54.6% | 19 July |
| Greece | 164 | 44.6% | 13 June |
| Hungary | 218 | 59.4% | 6 August |
| Ireland | 117 | 31.9% | 27 April |
| Italy | 169 | 46.0% | 18 June |
| Latvia | 161 | 43.7% | 10 June |
| Lithuania | 167 | 45.4% | 16 June |
| Luxembourg | 135 | 36.8% | 15 May |
| Malta | 99 | 26.8% | 9 April |
| Netherlands | 184 | 50.2% | 03 Jul |
| Poland | 160 | 43.6% | 9 June |
| Portugal | 150 | 40.9% | 30 May |
| Romania | 178 | 48.6% | 27 June |
| Slovakia | 167 | 45.5% | 16 June |
| Slovenia | 164 | 44.7% | 13 June |
| Spain | 136 | 37.0% | 16 May |
| Sweden | 181 | 49.4% | 30 June |
| United Kingdom | 134 | 36.3% | 13 May |
Read more about this topic: Tax Freedom Day
Famous quotes containing the words tax, freedom, day, workers, european and/or union:
“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 18:13.
“The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it’s an example of freedom from religion.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“To the cry of “follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,” Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The admission of the States of Wyoming and Idaho to the Union are events full of interest and congratulation, not only to the people of those States now happily endowed with a full participation in our privileges and responsibilities, but to all our people. Another belt of States stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)