Corporation tax rates around the world. How much do companies pay?
Corporation tax - the rate that companies pay - is a political minefield, as the revelations about Barclays show. Find out how much each country charges - and who is the highest
• Get the data
Corporation tax is a political battleground - as this week's revelations about Barclays shows.
Over the last 20 years, corporation tax has increasingly been used as a weapon in the global battle to attract investment from footloose multinationals. Rates have come down from highs in the early 1980s to record lows, as you can see from the chart below:
The data, from the OECD shows that while GDP has stagnated and the national debts of the developed world have increased, rates have gone down. And the developed world's highest corporation tax rates? Interestingly, it's the US (39.25%) and Japan (39.54%).
When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, the corporation tax take, at £4.6bn, formed 5.4% of total tax revenues. Last year, the £38.5bn paid by Britain's companies made up 7% of the government's tax take.
Corporation tax receipts from the financial sector ballooned in the boom years, from less than £6bn in 2003 to £10.3bn in 2007, accounting for more than a quarter of all corporation tax revenues, before crashing to less than £5bn last year, wrote Heather Stewart
.
Profits have tended to increase as a proportion of GDP across the developed world, while wages have fallen, driven by factors including cut-price labour from China and India. Some of the increase in tax take is down to clever tax planning: as corporation tax rates have dipped below personal tax rates, individuals have had the incentive to create companies and declare profits, instead of paying themselves wages
The full data - including a breakdown year by year back to the 1980s - is below. What can you do with it?
Data summary
| Country | Combined corporate tax rate, % | Income from corp. tax, % of GDP | Net debt, % of GDP | GDP change on previous year, % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 30.0 | .. | 0.4 | 3.3 |
| Austria | 25.0 | 1.7 | 41.7 | 2.0 |
| Belgium | 34.0 | 2.5 | 82.4 | 2.1 |
| Canada | 29.5 | 2.5 | 31.4 | 3.0 |
| Chile | 17.0 | .. | 5.2 | |
| Czech Republic | 19.0 | 3.7 | 3.5 | 2.4 |
| Denmark | 25.0 | 2.4 | 0.3 | 2.2 |
| Finland | 26.0 | 2.0 | -56.6 | 2.7 |
| France | 34.4 | 1.4 | 57.1 | 1.6 |
| Germany | 30.2 | 1.3 | 50.5 | 3.5 |
| Greece | 24.0 | 0.0 | 97.3 | -3.9 |
| Hungary | 19.0 | 2.2 | 61.6 | 1.1 |
| Iceland | 15.0 | 1.1 | 45.2 | -3.6 |
| Ireland | 12.5 | 2.4 | 61.5 | -0.3 |
| Italy | 27.5 | 3.1 | 103.3 | 1.0 |
| Japan | 39.5 | 2.4 | 114.0 | 3.7 |
| Korea | 24.2 | 3.7 | -36.6 | 6.2 |
| Luxembourg | 28.6 | 5.4 | -41.6 | 3.3 |
| Mexico | 30.0 | .. | 5.0 | |
| Netherlands | 25.5 | .. | 34.7 | 1.7 |
| New Zealand | 30.0 | 3.3 | -4.4 | 2.2 |
| Norway | 28.0 | 8.2 | -157.0 | 0.5 |
| Poland | 19.0 | .. | 29.0 | 3.5 |
| Portugal | 26.5 | .. | 63.2 | 1.5 |
| Slovakia | 19.0 | 2.8 | 24.5 | 4.1 |
| Spain | 30.0 | 2.2 | 43.4 | -0.2 |
| Sweden | 26.3 | 2.8 | -21.1 | 4.4 |
| Switzerland | 21.2 | 3.4 | 5.7 | 2.7 |
| Turkey | 20.0 | 1.9 | 8.2 | |
| United Kingdom | 28.0 | 2.8 | 51.3 | 1.8 |
| United States | 39.2 | 2.1 | 67.8 | 2.7 |
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