Bulgaria had the third-lowest tax-to-GDP ratio in the European Union in 2018, at 29.9 percent, according to the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat.
The statistics agency said that the overall tax-to-GDP ratio means the total amount of taxes and net social contributions (including imputed contributions) payable to the general government and the institutions of the EU, including voluntary contributions, net of uncollectible amounts; expressed as a percentage of GDP.
“It is one measure of the tax burden. It encompasses the wide diversity of social security systems in the EU,” Eurostat said.
Bulgaria had the third-lowest taxes on income and wealth as a percentage of GDP, at 5.8 percent, among members of the bloc, Eurostat said.
Taxes on income and wealth include corporate and personal income taxes, taxes on holding gains, payments by households for licenses to own or use cars, hunt or fish, current taxes on capital that are paid periodically, and others.
The tax-to-GDP ratio varies significantly among EU countries, with the highest share of taxes and social contributions in percentage of GDP in 2018 being recorded in France (48.4 per cent), Belgium (47.2 per cent) and Denmark (45.9 per cent), followed by Sweden (44.4 per cent), Austria (42.8 per cent), Finland (42.4 per cent) and Italy (42 per cent).
At the opposite end of the scale, Ireland (23 percent) and Romania (27.1 percent), ahead of Bulgaria (29.9 percent), Lithuania (30.5 percent) and Latvia (31.4 percent) registered the lowest ratios.
For taxes related to income and wealth, the highest share by far was registered in Denmark (28.9 percent of GDP), ahead of Sweden (18.6 percent), Belgium (16.8 percent) and Luxembourg (16.4 percent).
In contrast, Romania (4.9 percent), Lithuania (5.7 percent) and Bulgaria (5.8 percent) recorded the lowest taxes on income and wealth as a percentage of GDP.
Net social contributions accounted for a large proportion of GDP in France (18 percent) and Germany (17.1 percent), while the lowest shares were observed in Denmark (0.9 percent of GDP), Sweden (3.4 percent) and Ireland (4.2 percent), Eurostat said./ibna
Source:https://balkaneu.com
