Author: Christian von Haldenwang

FfD4 Countdown: A Watered-Down Proposal on Tax Expenditures Risks Undermining Countries’ Domestic Revenue Mobilization

Image of the Square in Seville, “4th International Conference on Financing for Development 30 June–3 July 2025 Seville, Spain”

Image by Gerhard Bögner on Pixabay

Governments’ decisions to grant preferential tax treatments have a direct impact on their ability–or inability–to finance their sustainable development goals. At the Fourth Conference on Financing for Development in June, countries must commit to greater oversight of tax expenditures, including implementing minimum reporting standards and rationalizing ineffective or harmful tax expenditures.…

Image of the Square in Seville, “4th International Conference on Financing for Development 30 June–3 July 2025 Seville, Spain”

Rationalising Tax Expenditures – a Core Element of Financing for Development

The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) needs to address the issue of tax expenditures. These preferential tax treatments cause huge immediate public revenue losses while their effectiveness is often in doubt. Governments worldwide use preferential tax treatments – called tax expenditures – to pursue different policy objectives, such as attracting investments, promoting…

International Economic Cooperation in Troubled Times: A Call for Strong Action by the G20


The leaders of the G20 will meet on 30 November and 1 December in Buenos Aires for their annual summit. They need to acknowledge that the last two years have been characterized by strong headwinds for the world economy. This time, however, it is not a mixture of poor macroeconomic policies and bad business decisions – as in 2008 when they met in Washington for their first summit – that endangers the well-being of billions of citizens around the globe. This time the threat stems from deliberate political decisions, in particular on trade.