Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2021 is a joint publication by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, the OECD Development Centre, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC), the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with the support of the European Union Regional Facility for Development in Transition for Latin America and the Caribbean. It presents detailed, internationally comparable data on tax revenues for 27 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) economies, three of which are OECD members. On 15 May 2020, the OECD Council invited Costa Rica to become a member. At the time of preparation of this publication, the deposit of Costa Rica’s instrument of accession to the OECD Convention was pending and therefore Costa Rica does not appear in the list of OECD members and is not included in the OECD averages reported.

Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2021 provides internationally comparable data on tax levels and tax structures for 27 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Financing the development agenda of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and its achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) requires a step change in domestic resource mobilisation. The current COVID-19 crisis has further deepened the need for LAC countries to strengthen the collection of tax revenues to address structural weaknesses in their fiscal, social protection and health systems. The region was already challenged by widespread social unrest and subdued growth when the COVID-19 crisis began. While countries were quick to implement health and fiscal measures in response to the crisis to support the most vulnerable households and firms, their efforts were hindered by high levels of informality, underdeveloped social protection systems and limited fiscal space (see ). Once the region has emerged from the COVID pandemic, under a well-defined sequence of policies, fiscal policies will need to be reformed and tax systems strengthened to support the economic recovery for all and to ensure a sustainable and fair fiscal position over the medium to long term.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the worst economic crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean for 120 years, causing significant short- and medium-term reductions in growth and increases in inequality, poverty and unemployment (ECLAC, 2021[1]). Necessary public health measures to protect human life precipitated a decline in GDP through two channels: on the supply side, the sudden interruption of supply chains associated with the closure of a large part of the companies that carry out activities identified as non-essential. On the demand side, layoffs or partial unemployment strongly impacted household income, thereby reducing consumption.

Global oil markets stabilised to some extent in 2019 following volatility in the fourth quarter of 2018 related to significant over-supply. In December 2018, the members of OPEC and allied oil-producing countries – most notably the Russian Federation – committed to reducing their overall output volume by a combined 1.2 million barrels per day (0.8 million for OPEC members) for the first half of 2019. The accord was largely successful and overall world liquid fuels production slowed markedly in the first quarter of 2019 (). Crude oil spot prices rallied as the market moved to greater equilibrium during the first months of the year. Nevertheless, prices again trended lower in May on the back of weakening macroeconomic fundamentals, rising trade tensions between China and the United States and a build-up of crude oil stockpiles in the United States. In response, OPEC and allied exporters agreed in July to extend crude oil production cuts until 2020. These trends notwithstanding, oil consumption jumped in the second half of the year, largely bolstered by record crude oil imports in China as several new mega-refineries came online. Despite the up-tick registered in the fourth quarter, annual average crude oil spot prices fell for the year, with Brent down 10% (from USD 71.1 per barrel to USD 64.0) and Western Texas Intermediate (WTI) declining by 12% (from USD 64.8 per barrel to USD 57.0).

In all of the following tables a (..) indicates not available. The main series in this volume cover the years 1990 to 2019.

Revenues of Latin American, Caribbean and OECD countries have been attributed to the different levels of government according to the revised guidelines set out in the final version of the 2008 System of National Accounts (SNA). Under this, revenues are generally attributed to the level of government that exercises the authority to impose the tax or has the final discretion to set and vary the tax rate.