CIAT
•
•
News
•
About CIAT
•
International Cooperation
•
Products and Services
•
Blog
Login
Close
Span
S
ish |
e
Cont
a
act
rc
us
h
M
Search...
•
Archived News
•
e-CIAT Newsletter
•
The Executive Secretary in the Press
•
External sources information
•
Member Countries
•
Organizational Structure
•
Strategic Guidelines
•
Our History
•
Participate
•
Contact Us
•
Frequently Asked Questions
•
Map Presentation
•
Strategic Alliances
•
International Activities
•
Initiative Portfolio
•
Links of Interest
•
My CIAT
•
Technical Assistance
•
Training
•
CIATData
•
Publications
•
Surveys
•
Library
•
About Blog
•
Bloggers
•
Skip to content
CIAT News
CIAT, IDB, OECD - Latin America and the Caribbean: Low personal income taxes lead to lower taxes on wages compared with OECD
Share Twitter
Buenos Aires, 26 September 2016 - Taxes on the
Object 1
labour income of the average worker in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries totalled 21.7% of total labour costs in 2013, one-third lower than in OECD countries, where the average was 35.9%, according to the first edition of Taxing Wages in Latin America and the Caribbean. More than 90% of the difference between LAC and OECD is due to personal income tax (13% of total labour costs). The new report, covering 20 LAC countries, was produced jointly by the Inter-American Centre of Tax Administrations (CIAT), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Development Centre and the Centre for Tax and Policy Administration both of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report was launched today in Buenos Aires during the VI LAC Fiscal Policy Forum hosted by Argentina’s Ministry of Treasury and Public Finances. The relatively low level of the LAC tax wedge - which measures the difference between an employer’s labour costs and an employee’s corresponding net take-home pay – reflects very low average personal income tax (PIT) rates. In fact, Mexico was the only country included in the report where workers had to pay PIT at the average wage level. In comparison, PIT represented 13.3% of the labour costs of an average worker in OECD countries. In the LAC region, the vast majority of the working population have incomes below the minimum PIT thresholds due to generous specific allowances. The prevalence of informal labour markets and tax evasion also contribute to the low levels of PIT revenues. The tax wedge for the average one-earner married couple with two children in LAC countries was 21.4%, only 0.3 percentage points less than that of the single worker, according to the report. The corresponding difference in OECD countries, where working family benefits are substantially higher, was 9.5 percentage points. Family allowance schemes exist in only five of the 20 LAC countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay – and are unavailable at the average wage level in Chile. A special chapter of the report explores the relationships between taxes on wages, characteristics of labour markets and levels of labour informality in LAC countries. The interaction between lower earnings thresholds of social security contributions (SSCs) -generally at the minimum wage level- and social security programme contribution rates increases the costs of adhering to social programmes for those with earnings in the lower and middle-income deciles. Meanwhile, the cost of formal labour market participation, as a percentage of earnings, decreases for those in the upper half of the earnings distribution with earnings above the minimum thresholds. The analysis shows that high rates of informality are correlated with high formalisation costs, especially for those at the lower-end and in the low-middle range of the income distribution. This adds to the many other non-tax factors that explain the
Youtube •
Mobile Version
•
Top
RSS