**3. International comparisons**

**Figure 3** compares tax revenues as a percentage of GDP for a sample of countries for both 1995 and 2014. The UK is slightly below the average for all OECD countries (33% in 1995 and 34% in 2014). As a share of GDP the UK's tax revenues increased slightly from about 30% in 1995 to approximately 32% in 2014. For the majority of other countries in the sample such changes that occurred in the share of tax in GDP tended to be modest. In consequence, countries such as Chile, the United States and Switzerland were low tax in both 1995 and 2014. High tax countries in both 1995 and 2014 included Denmark, France and Italy.

Countries which showed significant increases in the share of tax in GDP between 1995 and 2014 included Turkey and Greece. Countries with a significant reduction in the share of tax in GDP included Slovakia and Poland.
