Last week the Economist published OECD data showing the change in gas taxes for a number of countries. As you can see, the jump in taxes for some countries is pretty astounding.
I‘ve always admired the Economist’s data presentations, so I decided to see how difficult it is to duplicate their techniques.
So I started with the original OECD tables and massaged them into an Excel document. It did take quite a bit of massaging, but I’m happy with the result. Maybe I could have a new career in the Graphic Arts.
I decided that the actual taxes themselves were more interesting than the changes. This is the most up-to-date information from OECD and I’ve converted to Gallons and Dollars from Litres and Euros. Here’s my chart, and in case its beauty doesn’t take your breath away, the numbers certainly will.
Channeling The Economist
I guess things taxes could be worse.
Not A Mystery 
The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Posted by Sal | September 7, 2009, 4:58 pmSal,
Yes, literally that is correct. And a very slippery slope indeed…
Posted by Bob Gelber | September 7, 2009, 5:10 pmHey Sal,
And I know you’ll like this, from the OECD and soon coming to a theater near you to fund our new Health Care Overhaul:
“The spread of Value Added Tax (also called Goods and Services Tax – GST) has been the most important development in taxation over the last 50 years. It has now been implemented by nearly 150 countries, where it often accounts for one fifth of total tax revenue. At the same time as VATs have been spreading across the world, international trade has also been expanding rapidly.”
Posted by Bob Gelber | September 7, 2009, 5:20 pmBob, are you claiming that increased taxes caused increased trade? Or merely a correlation. Has trade increased in spite of the taxes?
Sal.
Posted by Sal | September 8, 2009, 7:01 amSal,
The OCED is just reporting it as correlated, I don’t think they get into policy issues per se. If you have the stomach for it, here’s a link:
http://www.oecd.org/about/0,3347,en_2649_33739_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
Bob
Posted by Bob Gelber | September 8, 2009, 9:43 am