This annual publication, Taxing Wages, Earlier editions were published under the title The Tax/Benefit Position of Employees (1996–1998 editions) and The Tax/Benefit Position of Production Workers (editions published before 1996). provides details of taxes paid on wages in all 36 member countries of the OECD. On 25 May 2018, the OECD Council invited Colombia to become a Member. At the time of publication, the deposit of Colombia’s instrument of accession to the OECD Convention was pending and therefore Colombia does not appear in the list of OECD Members and is not included in the OECD zone aggregates. The information contained in the Report covers the personal income tax and social security contributions paid by employees, the social security contributions and payroll taxes paid by their employers and cash benefits received by families. The objective of the Report is to illustrate how personal income taxes, social security contributions and payroll taxes are calculated and to examine how these levies and cash family benefits impact on net household incomes. The results also allow quantitative cross-country comparisons of labour cost levels and of the overall tax and benefit position of single persons and families.

In 2019 the OECD average tax wedge for the single worker earning the average wage was 36.0%, a decrease of 0.11 percentage points from 2018 and the sixth consecutive annual decrease. The tax wedge measures the difference between the labour costs to the employer and the corresponding net take-home pay of the employee. It is calculated as the sum of the total personal income tax (PIT) and social security contributions (SSCs) paid by employees and employers, minus cash benefits received, as a proportion of the total labour costs for employers.

The personal circumstances of taxpayers vary greatly. This Report therefore adopts a specific methodology to produce comparative statistics covering taxes, benefits and labour costs across OECD member countries The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.. The framework of the methodology is as follows: