“After recovery from the pandemic crisis, the tax burden grew even more (10.0%)”

-PUB-

2022 was a year marked by the start of a war in Europe, high inflation and, consequently, government and central bank measures that have tended to mitigate these impacts (such as raising interest rates; not always very successfully).

The amount of the tax burden has grown by more than three times the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the average gross salary in Portugal, since 2010. In just over a decade, in real terms, while the GDP has only grown by 10% and the average salary gross just 8%, the tax burden grew by 32%.

Normalizing the 3 indicators with 2010=100, it is easy to see the much faster growth of the tax burden in relation to GDP and income. The analysis also shows that the differential between the tax burden and the remaining 2 indicators has grown progressively (only in 3 years did GDP grow more than the tax burden) but that there are 2 periods in which the tax burden grew at a very higher than GDP and wages. Between 2011 and 2013, a period marked by the serious economic crisis that led to the intervention of the Troika (during part of that period GDP, on a larger scale, and tax burden and income, on a smaller scale, were falling), and in 2022.

In the last year, despite the high GDP growth (6.7% in real terms), after recovery from the pandemic crisis, the tax burden grew even more (10.0%) and the average net income did not increase. Consequently, the tax burden as a percentage of GDP increased to 36.4% in 2022 (35.3% in the previous year). This is the highest tax burden as a percentage of GDP on record.

The numbers demonstrate that the current economic context has not affected everyone equally. The Portuguese saw their purchasing power stagnant or reduced in 2022, while the State collected a record amount of tax revenue.