Statistik der Lohnsteuer 2008

Employees account for around nine tenths of the working population in Austria. If pensioners are included in the calculation, the number of persons liable to wage tax as a percentage of all income recipients is far higher. This publication presents the value, distribution and taxation of the gross earnings of some 6.2 million employees and pensioners; based on the latest data, it thus provides an important basis for measures relating to social and taxation policy.

The income situation of employees and pensioners is shown by earning levels, sex, age, social position, extent of employment, place of residence (Länder, political district, NUTS 3 unit) and economic activity as well as by other relevant social characteristics. Wage tax statistics record all earnings to their full extent, including those parts of earnings that are above the maximum contribution threshold for social insurance. Definitions of key terms relating to taxation law can be found in the text section.

As of 1994, the obligation of employers to submit employees’ pay slips to the tax authorities on an annual basis has made it possible to publish up-to-date wage tax statistics annually. The data relating to persons subject to wage tax that are used for the statistics are taken from the pay slips prior to any subsequent wage or income tax assessment. If two or more pay slips were submitted for a person, for each quantitative characteristic the corresponding values from all pay slips were added and for each qualitative characteristic the corresponding value from the pay slip with the highest gross income was taken to get from the pay slip level to the persons’ level.

The accompanying CD-ROM contains all tables as Excel files as well as the entire publication in PDF format.

This publication is available in German only.