EXAMPLE 4 Government tax revenue breakdown

Governments generate tax revenue through various means. In its 2014 report, the Tax Foundation analyzed data for 2011 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The United States’ tax revenue comprises individual income tax (37.1%), social insurance tax (22.8%), consumption tax (18.3%), property tax (12.4%), and corporate income tax (9.4%). A bar graph is appropriate to display these data because we have one value to explain the size of each tax category. Notice, a pie graph is appropriate as well, because these are all the parts of a whole. What if we wanted to compare the distribution of tax revenue for the United States to the average for all the other OECD countries? Pie charts are not good for comparisons. Figure 10.5 is a bar graph for the distribution of government tax revenue for the United States with a second set of bars representing the average for all other OECD nations adjacent to the bars for the United States. This is called a side-by-side bar graph. A side-by-side bar graph is useful for making comparisons. It is now clear that the United States relies more heavily on individual income tax, while the other countries rely more heavily on consumption taxes.