No, I did not look at that picture; data is much more easy to handle in text format. I looked two days ago at Wikipedia [0], but primary source should actually

No, I did not look at that picture; data is much more easy to handle in text format. I looked two days ago at Wikipedia [0], but primary source should actually be Eurostat [1]. And you are of course right in that different countries have different systems, and numbers are not always directly comparable. A small difference is not necessarily significant, or there may be quite some difference in practice even if numbers are the same. But if we look at those Eurostat numbers, what the paper says is Total revenue from taxes and compulsory social contributions - % of GDP so also for Portugal and Greece, those mandatory social security contributions of employer and employee are included as tax revenues in this comparison, like they are for Sweden. What is significant is that the employment rate of people varies a lot in different countries; it is 73-74 % in Sweden, Netherlands and Germany, while it is below 50 % in Croatia and Greece. It should also be noted that tax revenue to GDP is just a ratio, a number. It does not mean that taxes are a certain proportion of GDP, because a sum of all tax revenues is not a component of GDP. Interestingly, in Portugal this ratio actually dropped from 33.2 % to 32.4 % between 2011-2012. Most countries were tightening taxes at that time. But since this number is ratio to GDP, if GDP increases and tax revenue stays the same, the ratio drops. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP&oldid=645214116 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_... [1] http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/taxation/gen_info/economic_analysis/tax_structures/2014/pr_92-2014_en.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/tax...