On 16 May 2023 the OECD published Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023. The report is a joint publication by the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC), the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration and the OECD Development Centre.

The report shows that following the economic recovery after the pandemic, the rise in commodity prices and the phasing out of support offered to households and businesses during the pandemic, tax revenues as a share of GDO returned to pre pandemic levels in 2021. The average tax-to-GDP ratio in the Latin America and Caribbean region increased to 21.7% in 2021, which was 0.8 percentage points higher than in the previous year. The average tax-to-GDP ratio in the region remained well below the OECD average which was 34.1% of GDP in 2021.

The tax-to-GDP ratios in the region ranged widely in 2021 from 12.7% in Panama to 33.5% in Brazil, but the ratio increased in 18 of the 25 countries surveyed between 2020 and 2021. There was strong revenue growth in Belize as a result of the recovery in tourism revenues, and revenue growth in Chile, Peru and Brazil reflected higher commodity prices and increased tax revenue from goods and services taxes. Generally, revenue from goods and services taxes increased in the region by an average of 0.8% of GDP.

Taxes on goods and services continued to be the most important source of tax revenue in the region in 2021, bringing in around 50% of total tax revenue on average. Of this amount, revenue collected from the value added tax (VAT) represented 29.9% of total tax revenue. Revenue from taxes on income contributed 26.7% of total tax revenues, of which revenues from corporate income tax brought in 15.4% of total tax revenues and personal income tax raised 9.4%. The average share of social security contributions in total tax revenues in the region was 17.0% in 2021.

Environmentally related taxes collected revenue amounting to 1.0% of GDP on average in 2021 in the 25 countries of the region for which data are available. More than two-thirds of the revenue from environmental taxes was collected from taxes on energy, of which the most significant were excises on diesel and petrol which accounted for 0.7% of GDP on average.

The latest edition also looks at fiscal revenues from non-renewable natural resources. The survey indicates that the hydrocarbon and mining sectors have made a significant contribution to government revenues in the region. In the main oil producing countries, hydrocarbon-related revenues reached 2.6% of GDP in 2021 and are estimated to have risen to 4.2% of GDP in 2022. In the main mineral producing countries of the region, mining-related government revenue increased to 0.68% of GDP in 2021, and reached an estimated 0.70% of GDP in 2022, boosted by a recovery in mining output and higher international prices.

A section of the report on tax expenditures in the region indicates that these are used for a range of different purposes. The revenue lost through tax expenditures is around 3.7% of GDP on average, which is around 19% of government revenues. The report makes the point that the impact of the tax expenditures must be monitored to ensure that they are cost effective and achieving their objectives.