I understand that Norway publishes the tax returns of all citizens, but this might be seen as unfair by some as it reveals individual's income.
I'm wondering if any country has tried publishing the percentage rate of tax that each citizen paid?
i.e. taking the gross income before deductions and the tax paid and turning that into a percentage.
It strikes me that this approach would help to highlight tax avoidance without giving away too much personal information.
Summary:
published the percentage rate of tax that each citizen paid?
i.e. taking the gross income before deductions and the tax paid and turning that in to a percentage.
I don't really see where the big difference between publishing taxable income vs. publishing effective tax rate is in terms of privacy?
Here in Germany, the effective tax rate is a strictly monotonous function of taxable income (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)#/media/File:ESt_D_Splitting_2018_zvE_bis_120000.svg), with 2 exceptions:
So, publishing effective tax rate (as in taxes : taxable income) leaves the reader to guess a bit about the size of capital gains vs. other sources of income, but is almost as good as publishing taxable income in terms of information content.
Personally, I'm very much in favor of privacy rights (along the line that I behave well and in concequence expect privacy), and in my culture personal income and/or wealth are considered private. From that perspective, I do see a huge difference between a (or few) tax officer(s) who took an oath that they will obey all laws and will be scrupulously correct in administering their duties knowing details of my financial situation in order to calculate my taxes and random persons getting this knowledge. (more below in section "Does it help").
But that's certainly a political opinion and as such open to discussion.
It strikes me that this approach would help to highlight tax avoidance without giving away too much personal information.
I don't see how?
As for not giving away too much personal information, see above.
As I understand tax avoidance, it happens via deductions that are legal but reduce the taxable income in a way that was not envisioned when the respective tax law was made (loophole). So all that distinguishes them from normal deductions is that they were not intended for the situation where they are employed.
Which means in turn that detecting a loophole needs sufficient information to distinguish whether a deduction is used as intended or not. This is impossible without knowing what exactly is deducted. In other words, far more detailed information than tax ratio or taxes paid to income before deductions is needed.
Even the tax office may not be able to detect this loophone immediately but they look for unusual patterns and routinely request further documentation (or discard deductions) - which would allow them to detect the loophole.
The ratio of tax to income before deductions proposed in the question is not very informative without additional information. Consider the following situations without tax avoidance:
In the end, even with publishing income before deductions and tax rate, the legal and plausible range will be so wide that I don't see how good conclusions can be drawn.
Moreover, I don't see how any conclusions would be possible for this tax to income before deduction rate (or effective tax rate) that the tax office couldn't draw far more easily as they have far more information at hand and the right (and duty) to ask for more documentation in case anything is not clear.
If a country supports all its citizens and supports poor with the taxpayer's money, in the form of minimum wage/others, for one's survival, there is no necessity for the poor (temporarily) to involve in crimes (If the received funds are sufficient to lead a good life). Publishing such information encourages others to work hard to move up the ladder.
In other words, schools reveal the student's grades openly, without any concern. The results are only applicable to those, who are in a specific group (who are equal in age/capability without any distinction and discrimination) and it cannot cause any harm. if a student wants to do better down the line, the path is clear. All he needs to do is to open the books and read them, to score better grades.
In countries, where the gap between the rich and poor is high, where the law implementation is weak, there are many anti-social groups (like Mafia) and others. If any people's wealth information is revealed, they will use it to mint money from them (Kidnapping, Blackmailing, etc)
Essentially, it boils down to the following.
If the answer is YES, there is no problem in revealing such information.
In developing countries, there exists an anti-social faction for each Area/Colony. of a town/City. Revealing such information is going to destroy those people's lives. The law is poorly managed and their ability to get things done right is highly questionable. In addition, consider the additional privileges provided to some as a part of the constitution.
In Canada this is provided by a non-governmental body, since 2007.
The Fraser Institute calculates Tax Freedom Day:
Tax Freedom Day measures the total yearly tax burden imposed on Canadian families by all levels of government: If you had to pay all your taxes up front, you’d give government every dollar you earned before June 14. This year, the average Canadian family (with two or more people) will pay $52,675 in total taxes, or 44.7 per cent of its annual income.
There are occasionally some differences of opinion as to exactly how accurate their calculations may be.
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