The Second Seminar on Tax Expenditures: Reducing abuses and improving effectiveness was held at the IDB headquarters in Washington, D.C., on November 8 and 9. It was organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). There were several presentations regarding experiences in the measurement of tax expenditures and methodological proposals for evaluating its effectiveness.

The presentations were made by experts from international organizations and the academic community, as well as officials from the tax administrations and ministries of finance of the Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Important among the presentations were the one on estimation of tax expenditure at the subnational level, estimation of tax expenditure for the promotion of investments and harmonization in the process of estimation of tax expenditures. With respect to this latter topic, the CIAT Tax Studies and Research Manager, Miguel Pecho, made a presentation on the progress of the Manual on Best Practices in the measurement of Tax Expenditures.

The seminar’s material is available in the IDB web page and in the virtual platform of CIAT’s Network of Tax Studies and Research Areas.