Labour Taxation – Country Benchmark

Nobody wants to pay high taxes on their hard-earned income and neither do I. That’s why I created this simple one-page report to compare tax contributions among different countries, primarily in Europe, but also in the US, Australia, Japan, Korea, Chile, and Mexico.

The data is sourced from the OECD Data Explorer, which gathers information on Personal Income Tax rates, Social Security contributions, Gross Labor Costs, and Net Income After Taxes (i.e., what’s left in your pocket). The data spans 10 years (2014-2023). You can choose among three household types: Single Person, Couple without children, and Couple with 2 children, as well as different earning levels.

Click to see data respond. For Full Screen click on the diagonal arrow in the bottom right.

The following Power BI techniques were used to create this report:

  • Bookmarks: To switch between ‘Scatter Plot’ and ‘Matrix’ views.
  • Customized Tooltips: To view details by hovering the mouse over a bubble.
  • Conditional Formatting: To mark ‘green’ and ‘red’ countries.
  • Sparklines: To see trends over 10 years.
  • Multiple Sources: To enrich the report with country flag and population data.
  • Using RANKX(): To rank countries from lowest to highest tax contribution.
  • Using MEDIANX(): To calculate a dynamic median for the X and Y axes, allowing for ‘moving’ scatter plot quadrants (see the DAX formula below).
Median X = IF(
    ISBLANK([Total Value]),
    BLANK(),
    MEDIANX(
        FILTER(
            ALLSELECTED(Country),
            NOT (ISBLANK([Total Value]))
        ),
        [Average tax wedge]
    )
)

The biggest challenge was to squeeze all the information into one page without making it unreadable. Well, using the above Power BI techniques made it possible. Now, check out how hungry governments are across different countries! Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below.

Click here to Link to OECD Data Explorer.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.