According to Eurostat, Malta has the lowest implicit tax rates on labour among EU countries.

From these statistics related to trends in taxation, it transpires that the largest source of tax revenue in the EU27 is labour taxes, representing nearly half of total tax receipts, followed by consumption taxes at roughly one third and taxes on capital at around one fifth.

The GDP-weighted average implicit tax rate4 on labour in the EU27 was up from 35.4% in 2010 to 35.8% in 2011. Among the Member States, the implicit tax rate on labour ranged in 2011 from 22.7% in Malta, 24.6% in Bulgaria, 25.5% in Portugal and 26.0% in the United Kingdom, to 42.8% in Belgium, 42.3% in Italy and 40.8% in Austria.

The average implicit tax rate on consumption in the EU27 was up from 19.7% in 2010 to 20.1% in 2011. Implicit tax rates on consumption were lowest in 2011 in Spain (14.0%), Greece (16.3%), Latvia (17.2%) and Italy (17.4%), and highest in Denmark (31.4%), Sweden (27.3%), Luxembourg (27.2%), Hungary (26.8%) and Finland (26.4%).

In the EU27 in 2011, the average implicit tax rate on capital for the Member States for which data are available was down compared with 2010 in ten Member States and up in nine. Implicit tax rates on capital ranged from 5.5% in Lithuania to 44.4% in France.