Article content continued

The increase among the majority of OECD members reverses a downward trend in recent years, prompting the Paris-based agency to urge governments to keep payroll charges down.

“Taxes on wages, including both employer and employee social-security charges, are a key factor in companies’ hiring decisions and individuals’ incentives to work,” the OECD said.

Governments trying to cut deficits while spurring growth should shift away from payroll taxes and higher personal income taxes and instead boost revenues from property taxes and value-added levies such as Canada’s GST or HST, the OECD advised.

Canada was one of only 11 of the 34 members of the OECD, a group of advanced industrialized economies, that in 2010 enjoyed a reduction in the total burden of taxes plus employee and employer social-security contributions.

Chile’s remained the same, while 22 other countries, including the U.S., recorded increases.

Canada’s overall total tax burden, including social-security charges, was 30.3% of wages for a single person without children.

Only the United States, Ireland, Australia, Switzerland, Israel, Korea, New Zealand, Mexico and Chile had lower burdens, though the U.S. rate — at 29.7%, up slightly from 2009 during a time when Canada’s shrank by about a third of a percentage point — was just behind Canada’s.

Western European countries, needing to fund far more generous social programs, had by far the highest payroll costs. Belgium led the way last year at 55.4%, followed by France at 49.3% and Germany at 49.1%. The lowest was Chile’s, at 7%, while Mexico’s was second-last at 15.5%.