Side event “Minimum standards for tax expenditure reporting”

Veranstaltungsart
FfD4 Side Event

Ort / Datum
Sevilla, Spain, 03.07.2025

German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), Ministry of Finance of Brazil, Ministry of Finance of Indonesia, Council on Economic Policies (CEP, Switzerland)

Background
 

Governments worldwide use preferential tax treatments – called tax expenditures – to pursue different policy objectives. These measures cause huge immediate public revenue losses while their effectiveness is often in doubt. Against this background, many governments seek to rationalise the use of tax expenditures.

All too often, however, reforming ineffective or harmful tax expenditures proves to be challenging. Lack of reliable information about the fiscal impact of tax expenditures and their effects, but also about the tax expenditure regimes of other countries, is one of the factors that play a critical role in this regard. Above all, such information should come from comprehensive and detailed government reports on the use of tax expenditures, but not all reports fulfil this purpose.

The side event introduces key features of tax expenditure reporting, derived from good international practices and showcased in the Global Tax Expenditure Transparency Index (GTETI). Based on two successful country experiences, it discusses how such key features can be put into practice, and highlights how good tax expenditure reporting enables governments to rationalise tax expenditures and strengthen domestic revenue mobilisation.
 

Structure
 

• 10:30 – 10:40
  Introduction
  Christian von Haldenwang, Senior Researcher, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
• 10:40 – 11:00
  Presentation of the Global Tax Expenditures Transparency Index (GTETI)
  Agustin Redonda, Senior Fellow, Council on Economic Policies (CEP), Switzerland
• 11:00 – 11:40
  Good practices in Tax Expenditure Reporting: Indonesia and Brazil
  Débora Freire, Deputy Secretary for Fiscal Policy, Ministry of Finance, Brazil
  Hadi Setiawan and Bagus Raharjo Hariputro, Center of State Revenue Policy, Ministry of Finance, Indonesia
• 11:40 – 11:55
  Q&A. “Improving tax expenditure reporting to enhance policy making in the field”
  Audience and Speakers
• 11:55 – 12:00
  Closing
   

Focal Point
 

• Christian von Haldenwang
   

Related publications
 

• FfD4 Countdown: A Watered-Down Proposal on Tax Expenditures Risks Undermining Countries’ Domestic Revenue Mobilization
  Readhead, Alexandra / Agustin Redonda / Christian von Haldenwang / Giovanni Occhiali / Hazel Granger (2025)
  IDOS Blog, 22 April 2025
• Rationalising Tax Expenditures – a Core Element of Financing for Development
  von Haldenwang, Christian / Agustin Redonda (2025)
  IDOS Blog, 20 February 2025

Hinweis

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