The personal circumstances of taxpayers vary greatly. This Report adopts a specific methodology to produce comparative statistics covering taxes, benefits and labour costs across OECD member countries.1 The framework of the methodology is as follows:
The Report focuses on eight household types which vary by composition and level of earnings.
Each household contains a full-time adult employee working in one of a broad range of industry sectors of each OECD economy. Some of the households also have a spouse working less than full-time.
The annual income from employment is assumed to be equal to a given fraction of the average gross wage earnings of these workers.
Additional assumptions are also made regarding other relevant personal circumstances of these wage earners in order to calculate their tax/benefit position.
The guidelines described in the following paragraphs form the basis for the calculations shown in Parts I and II of this Report. Table A A.1 sets out the terminology that is used. Where a country had to depart from the guidelines, this is noted in the text and/or in the country chapters contained in Part II of the Report. The proportion of taxpayers with the defined characteristics and the average wage differ between OECD economies.