Foreword
Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2024 is a joint publication by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, the OECD Development Centre, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN - ECLAC), the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with financial support from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). It presents detailed, internationally comparable data on tax revenues for 27 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) economies, four of which are OECD members.
Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2024 is based on the well-established classification of revenues set out in the OECD Interpretative Guide. In this publication, the term “taxes” is confined to compulsory, unrequited payments to general government. As outlined, taxes are “unrequited” in the sense that benefits provided by government to taxpayers are not normally in proportion to their payments. The OECD methodology classifies a tax according to its base: income, profits and capital gains (classified under heading 1000); payroll (heading 3000); property (heading 4000); goods and services (heading 5000); and other taxes (heading 6000). Compulsory social security contributions paid to general government are treated as taxes and classified under heading 2000. Greater detail on the tax concept, the classification of taxes and the accrual basis of reporting is set out in the Interpretative Guide in Annex A.
Extending the OECD methodology to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) enables comparisons of tax systems on a consistent basis across this region as well as with OECD countries and with all countries included in the Global Revenue Statistics database. In a few cases, this methodology differs from the approach used by UN-ECLAC, CIAT and IDB; these differences are noted in the text and in the tables.
The report provides an overview of the main taxation trends in the LAC region. It examines changes in the level and the composition of tax revenue plus the attribution of tax collection by sub-level of government between 1990 and 2022. The report includes two special features: the first examines fiscal revenues from non-renewable natural resources in the LAC region in 2022 and 2023; the second discusses equivalent fiscal pressure, a complementary revenue indicator for the LAC region.