Advancing fiscal transparency in Latin American countries: new findings in reports on tax sustainability in Chile

Abstract

Purpose

The objective of this study is to generate new fiscal transparency indicators based on fiscal sustainability reports voluntarily disclosed by Chilean companies, leaders in Latin America in the issuance of green, social and sustainability corporate bonds (OECD, 2023a; OECD, 2018).

Design/methodology/approach

The sample included the analysis of sustainability reports of 30 Chilean companies with the highest market capitalization published in the period 2021. A correlation was carried out for each of the companies in the sample with the intention of detecting differences between several groups of paired dichotomous variables. For this, Cochran's Q test was used; the McNemar test; the Friedman test; the Wilcoxon test; the Levene test and the Kruskal−Wallis test were also used.

Findings

In the case of the companies in the sample, for the 2021 period there was an increase in disclosures of tax strategies compared to the study carried out by Faúndez-Ugalde et al. (2022) for the period 2020. However, there is still a lower degree of compliance in reporting fiscal risks and “country by country” information.

Practical implications

The commitment of companies to assume tax transparency standards improves their behavior in compliance with their tax obligations and provides greater certainty to develop actions to mitigate their tax risks.

Social implications

The results demonstrate practical implications, where fiscal sustainability reports can enhance the work of tax administrations by defining indicators of good fiscal practices.

Originality/value

This study expands the research on the fiscal sustainability standards of Chilean companies, thus providing a deeper understanding of their performance regarding fiscal transparency.