Finances of the Nation: Is There Tax Convergence Among OECD Countries?

Abstract

In this article, Luc Godbout and Michaël Robert-Angers assess whether the burden of taxation and the tax structures used to collect tax revenues are converging among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). After defining the concept of convergence and presenting a methodology for measuring the degree of similarity among tax systems, the authors apply that methodology to OECD data for the period 1981-2018 to examine convergence among 24 member countries and individually for each country relative to the OECD average. While the data indicate convergence for the majority of the 24 countries in terms of the burden of taxation and the way in which tax revenue is collected, Canada is not part of this trend.