The Global Tax Expenditures Transparency Index (GTETI) provides a systematic framework to score and rank countries according to the regularity, quality, and scope of their tax expenditure (TE) reports and reporting practices. The GTETI offers the first comparative assessment of TE reporting that covers countries worldwide. It is structured across five dimensions and 25 indicators.
Since its launch in October 2023, the GTETI has gained attention from governments and organizations worldwide as a useful tool for fiscal transparency. More recently, several updates and improvements to the index structure and methodology have been introduced to fine-tune the assessment, resulting in score changes and adjustments to the overall ranking.
The revised version of the index (GTETI 1.1) includes, in a few cases, new data provided by governments as part of their feedback to the government outreach that was conducted back in 2023. At the same time, several methodological changes have been introduced, including the addition of further questions for supporting documentation, the inclusion of intermediate scoring options, and the broadening of what is considered a valid form of TE evaluation.
A summary of the main updates is provided below. A more comprehensive and detailed discussion can be found in the revised version of the Global Tax Expenditures Transparency Index Companion Paper.
Main updates:
- Coverage expansion: A new country, Cyprus (CYP), has been added to the GTETI, bringing the total number of assessed jurisdictions up to 105 (from 104 in the previous version). Furthermore, five countries – Bolivia (BOL), Denmark (DNK), Finland (FIN), Ireland (IRL) and Japan (JPN) – had their assessments revisited as more comprehensive reports (published before the cutoff date 31 December 2022, which has not changed) were made available.
- Standardized documentation: Each country in the GTETI is assessed along all 25 indicators. These indicators are based on a set of questions and sub-questions, generating a total of 162 datapoints per country. All supporting documentation across the index now includes standardized answers for each data point, enabling automated score checks. This improves score consistency across countries and indicators, while unlocking new possibilities for data visualization and analysis.
- Horizontal review process: A new research and data verification stage, the “horizontal” or “by indicator” review, has been added to the GTETI assessment process. This review stage consists of one analyst reviewing one indicator across all assessed jurisdictions to identify inconsistencies. Additionally, automated checks ensure consistent formatting in the underlying supporting documentation. Each indicator is reviewed individually, and any inconsistencies are flagged for further review and potential adjustment.
Key adjustments to the GTETI structure:
- Dimension 1 – Public availability: Minor updates have been made to three indicators 1.1 Reporting frequency and regularity, 1.3 Visibility, and 1.4 Online accessibility. These updates clarify existing criteria and improve the accuracy of the assessments, with the introduction of additional questions for supporting documentation. One important change regards consolidation, affecting Indicator 1.5 Reader-friendliness. The GTETI considers documents referenced or linked in the main TE report as being incorporated in it. Additionally, we now consider any files directly associated with the TE report that are hosted on the same official webpage where the main TE report is published.
- Dimension 2 – Institutional framework: Adjustments were introduced to Indicators 2.1 Legal basis, 2.2 Submission to parliament, and 2.3 Reporting responsibility. Most notably, only legal obligations specific to TEs qualify for a positive score in Indicator 2.1. Also, intermediate scoring options were added to Indicators 2.2 and 2.3 to reflect countries meeting either legal or factual criteria, but not both.
- Dimension 3 – Methodology and scope: Additional documentation questions were added to Indicator 3.1 Information on TE coverage to standardize the scoring practice. The answering options for Indicator 3.3 Structural relief have been clarified to help distinguish between the definition of the tax benchmark and the use of the “structural tax relief” concept.
- Dimension 4 – Descriptive TE data: No major methodological changes were made within this dimension, but the standardization of supporting documentation has resulted in minor adjustments across indicators, which has improved consistency in data reporting.
- Dimension 5 – TE assessment: A significant change was made to Indicator 5.5 TE evaluations. GTETI 1.1 recognizes incidence analyses as a valid form of TE evaluation, which the previous version did not. This broadens the scope of TE evaluations considered in the assessment which now goes beyond cost-benefit analyses. While the number of scoring options remains the same, the adjustment ensures a more inclusive and diverse assessment of TE evaluations.
The updates and changes introduced reflected in the GTETI 1.1 strengthen the indexes role as a vital tool to promote transparency and accountability in TE reporting practices.
Addendum: The GTETI scores and rankings on this website and the full dataset (downloadable here) were released on 6 December 2024. They reflect the most recent version of the GTETI 1.1., including final amendments that were made after the release of the new methodology on 3 December 2024.
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