AS per OECD Report, tax collections in Latin American countries are lower as a proportion of their national incomes than in most OECD countries, but are rising slowly. Revenue Statistics in Latin America shows that the average tax revenue to GDP ratio in the 15 Latin American countries covered by the report increased from 19% in 2009 to 19.4% in 2010, after falling from a high point of 19.7% in 2008.

The report, produced jointly by the OECD, the Inter-American Centre of Tax Administrations (CIAT) and The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), notes that though the tax to GDP ratio did rise significantly across Latin American and Caribbean countries over the period 1990-2008 – by 5.8 percentage points compared to 1.5 for the OECD - at 19.4% in 2010 it is still far lower that the OECD average of 33.8%.

Across both OECD and Latin American countries there are wide national variations. In 2010, the tax to GDP ratios for the Latin American and Caribbean countries range from 33.5% in Argentina (close to the OECD average) to 11.4% in Venezuela and in OECD countries from 47.6% in Denmark to 18.8% in Mexico.

The share of tax revenues collected by local governments in Latin America is small in most countries and has not increased, reflecting the relatively narrow range of taxes under their jurisdictions compared with OECD countries.