Guyana Tax to GDP Falls to Lowest in Latin America and Caribbean

  • Tax revenues as a share of GDP in Guyana fell in 2023, and the country now has the lowest tax-GDP ratio for the Latin America and Caribbean region, a new report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has said.
  • This decline is primarily due to explosive GDP growth driven by offshore oil production, which surged, reaching over 645,000 barrels per day in 20242. However, this growth has not translated into proportional tax receipts, as much of the revenue is retained by foreign operators under Guyana’s production sharing agreement with the ExxonMobil-led consortium.
  • According to the report, tax revenues in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) also decreased as a share of GDP in 2023 amid a slowdown in economic activity in the region and a decline in global commodity prices. The report titled, Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2025, released two weeks ago, shows that the average tax-to-GDP ratio in the LAC region was 21.3% in 2023.
  • This was 0.2 percentage points (p.p.) below 2022 levels and slightly below pre-COVID levels of 21.4% in 2019. Tax-to-GDP ratios in the LAC region, according to the report, ranged from 11.6% in Guyana to 32.0% in Brazil in 2023.

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2 Reuters

(Source: Kaieteur News)