GTED’s Christian von Haldenwang writes about the significant amount of revenue that states forgo through tax expenditures which on average lie around 4% of gross domestic product. This is equivalent to almost a quarter of the tax revenues generated – currently over 3.5 trillion US dollars per year. The actual figures are probably much higher, as only 97 out of 218 countries covered by the GTED publish information on the subject, and only 41 of them produce regular and detailed reports. Von Haldenwang stresses the importance of transparency in order to assess those tax expenditures and the need to put them under scrutiny.
Read the full Frankfurter Rundschau article (in German) here.