Investing for Survival--World's highest tax rates

World’s Highest Tax Rates

By International Living

Spare a thought for the citizens of Belgium. Their beer is great and their waffles tasty but they also suffer from the highest effective personal tax rate in the world. That’s according to a survey by KPMG.

The auditing firm looked at income tax rates and other deductions like social security to calculate their results. “Whether social security is a true tax is a topic of continued debate, but in terms of cost, it can be material and should not be ignored,” says the company.

For someone on a gross income of $100,000 a year these are the 10 countries in which they would have to shell out the most for tax and social security combined. Other European countries came close to the top 10. Luxembourg was 11th, the Netherlands 12th, Portugal 13th and Austria 17th place. Brazil was the only South American country in the top 20 coming in at 16th place.

Only three Asian countries made KPMG’s full list, India at 14th, Malaysia at 34th place and the Philippines at 39th. Canada is in 40th position and the U.S. is further down the list at 55th position.