Despite a downward trend registered since 1999, the tax burden in 2007 (43.3% of GDP) remains at a high level, both historically and in comparison with other countries. OECD countries have experienced an increase in the tax burden since the mid-1960s comparable to that of France, rising from 25% of the GDP in 1965 to 36% in 2005. That of the countries of the European Union has increased by nearly 12 percentage points of GDP over the period. Efforts to control the increase in the tax burden have been made by the states of the OECD: the tax rate decelerated during the 90s and has decreased slightly since 2000. This is why France continues to be among the OECD countries whose tax rate is the highest. Taxes account for 45% of GDP against 37% on average in OECD countries. The overall rate of social security and tax on the average wage in 2005 was 71.3% of gross salary, the highest of the OECD. The levels of social security contributions are particularly high (16.3% of revenue against 9.4% in average for OECD). The social security budgets are larger than the budget of the national government. The budgets of both the national government and of social security organizations run deficits.