There were also no changes this year to the rankings of the next seven countries, which include other Middle East countries, Singapore and Hong Kong.
In the ‘Paying Taxes’ report on 189 tax jurisdictions, on average it took PwC’s case study company 268 hours to comply with its taxes, 26.7 payments, and an average total tax rate of 43.1%.
Since the study started nine years ago, the average amount of tax paid is down 9%, the number of hours taken down by 55, and the number of payments lower by seven.
Fourteen economies have significantly increased their tax rate while the same number dropped their rates.
Oman was up two places year on year to rank 9th and the UK also jumped by two to 14th.
Those higher ranked countries which dropped down the league by one position include Kiribati (10th), Mauritius (13th), and Luxembourg (15th).
Andrew Packman, PwC’s tax transparency and total tax contribution leader, said: “Last year we saw a slowing in the rate of decline in the total tax rates around the world. This has continued.
"Excluding the large rate reductions in Africa which arise as cascading sales taxes are replaced, the picture around the world is much more mixed and the overall average total tax rate has actually increased."
He added that some economies continue to reduce their rates to help provide an attractive environment for investment: others are seeing a growing need to increase tax revenues to provide funding for public services and to help reduce public sector deficits.”
Top 15 regions for business tax
- 1 UAE
- 2 Qatar
- 3 Saudi Arabia
- 4 Hong Kong
- 5 Singapore
- 6 Ireland
- 7 Bahrain
- 8 Canada
- 9 Oman
- 10 Kiribati
- 11 Kuwait
- 12 Denmark
- 13 Mauritius
- 14 UK
- 15 Luxembourg
