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
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