| AS per the OECD Report, Argentina
and Brazil have the highest tax revenue to GDP ratio, while Guatemala and
Dominican Republic stand at the lower end.
Tax
revenues in Latin American countries continue to rise but are lower as a
proportion of their national incomes than in most OECD countries. The publication
Revenue Statistics in Latin America 1990-2012 (third edition) shows that the
average tax revenue to GDP ratio in the 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries
increased steadily from 18.9% in 2009 to 20.7% in
2012 after falling from a high point of 19.5% in 2008.
The
report, produced jointly by the Inter-American Centre of Tax Administrations
(CIAT), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
and the OECD, launched yesterday during the XXVI Regional Seminar on Fiscal
Policy, which is being held at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile. It
shows that the tax to GDP ratio rose significantly across Latin American
and the Caribbean over the past two decades - from 13.9% of GDP in 1990 to
20.7% of GDP in 2012. But the tax to GDP ratio is still 14 percentage points
below the OECD average of 34.6%.
Wide national variations exist across Latin American countries. At the upper
end are Argentina (37.3%) and Brazil (36.3%), which are both above the OECD
average, while at the lower end are Guatemala (12.3%) and Dominican Republic
(13.5%). The corresponding range in OECD countries was from 48% in Denmark
to 19.6%[2] 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.
A special chapter in the report describes the trends driving revenues from
non-renewable natural resources across Latin America. Increased global demand
for commodities, especially in large emerging markets, has led to sharp price
increases and greater fiscal revenues associated with non-renewable natural
resources. While these revenues increased at a faster rate than other government
revenues before the crisis, their performance has been roughly 3 times more
volatile than overall tax-to-GDP growth since 2000.
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