This note aims to inform governments on how to account for tax expenditures and use that information in fiscal management. The emphasis is on developing and emerging market economies, where the use of such accounts is in its infancy because of data constraints, insufficient human and financial resources, and weak fiscal institutions. Most developing economies, more-over, do not have tax policy units in their Ministry of Finance to provide analytical support to the govern¬ment and legislature that integrates all revenue policy aspects. As a result, the tax policy framework can be fragmented: line ministries compete in the provision of sectoral tax incentives, but do not report on their cost. The note is organized as follows. The second section outlines the role that tax expenditure measurement and reporting can play in fiscal management. The third section provides a step-by-step approach on how tax expenditure accounts can be built, with emphasis on data, methods and models, and institutional requirements. The section is concerned primarily with the direct cost of tax expenditures—that is, the revenue forgone because of them. It does not deal with their indirect costs, which could include economic efficiency losses and additional tax administration resources, and it does not address assessment of the benefits of tax expenditures. The fourth summarizes the current sta¬tus of tax expenditure reporting in developing econo¬mies, with some reference to advanced economies. The last section concludes.

This book sheds light on the use of tax expenditures, mainly through a study of ten OECD countries: Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. It highlights key trends and successful practices.

Locates tax expenditure management within the broader discourse of liberal democratic political theory.

This paper considers the merits of reducing or eliminating some specific tax expenditure measures currently in force in the United States with a view to reducing the federal fiscal deficit. The paper starts from the observation that savings decisions in the United States are distorted and that therefore government borrowing to finance current expenditures results in significant welfare losses. It is possible by reducing or eliminating individual tax expenditures to reduce the fiscal deficit while at the same time enhancing economic efficiency. However, tax expenditures are heterogeneous so changes to the range of tax expenditures should be selective.

The excessive complexity and burden of the Brazilian tax system, riddled by cumulative indirect taxes and heavy payroll contributions, have led to an accumulation of fiscal incentives aimed at reducing its burden on taxpayers and productive activities. Federal and subnational tax expenditures currently stand at over 5 percent of GDP. Rationalizing them can only be comprehensively feasible in the context of a broader sequenced tax reform, and could reduce resource misallocation and income inequality, as well as provide new revenues.