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Security report for taxexpenditures.org

Tax Expenditures · Government · N/a

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

66/100

Risk levelMedium

0–100, higher is better. How it is calculated

The Tax Expenditures Lab website serves as a comprehensive hub for research, data, and transparency on tax expenditures globally. It is affiliated with reputable institutions such as the Council on Economic Policies and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, providing authoritative databases and indices like GTED and GTETI. The site targets policymakers, researchers, and tax professionals, offering publications, news, and events to support tax policy reforms. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern frameworks and plugins, delivering a good user experience with mobile optimization and SEO best practices. Security posture is solid with HTTPS and some security plugins, though improvements in security headers are recommended. Privacy compliance is adequate with a clear privacy policy but lacks explicit cookie consent mechanisms. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and content-rich, with no signs of blocking or malicious activity.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 100 · Medium
Checks completed
7of 7

NIS2 Art. 21(2)

  1. (a) Risk analysis and security policies: Not visible from outside
  2. (b) Incident handling: One indicator
  3. (c) Business continuity, backups and crisis management: Not visible from outside
  4. (d) Supply chain security: Not visible from outside
  5. (e) Secure acquisition, development and maintenance, including vulnerability handling: Partly checked
  6. (f) Assessing the effectiveness of security measures: Not visible from outside
  7. (g) Cyber hygiene and security training: Not visible from outside
  8. (h) Cryptography and encryption: Partly checked
  9. (i) HR security, access control and asset management: One indicator
  10. (j) Multi-factor authentication and secured communications: Not visible from outside

This scan rated NIS2 with an earlier keyword method that is no longer shown; rescan for the per-article view. Risk management, continuity, supply chain, training, MFA, management oversight (Art. 20) and incident reporting (Art. 23) need internal evidence, and Guard cannot tell whether NIS2 applies to this organisation.

GDPR is indicative only, based on publicly visible signals: Articles 7, 12, 13 and 32 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive. Not a certification or legal assessment.

Priority findings

7 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  2. Security headers

    Security headers are instructions your web server sends to every visitor’s browser. Missing ones leave visitors more exposed to attacks such as clickjacking and injected scripts.

    • High

      Missing Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • High

      Missing Content-Security-Policy header

      Controls resources the browser is allowed to load

      What to do: Implement a Content-Security-Policy appropriate for your application

      • ASVS V3.4.3
      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; form-action 'self'; base-uri 'self'; object-src 'none';…

  3. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • High

      No Cookie Policy found

      GDPR requires clear information about cookie usage

      What to do: Add a dedicated cookie policy explaining cookie usage and purposes

    • High

      No Cookie Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching taxexpenditures.org

This scan found 21 issues across 6 checks. Monitoring re-runs those checks daily, emails you when something material changes and records each fix, so you can show progress.

Daily monitoring

Recommended

€25per month

  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

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Results by check

Each check with its score, findings and the evidence it collected.

How this score is calculated

The security score runs 0–100, higher is better. It is the plain average of the security checks that completed in this scan, each counted equally. A check that could not run is left out: it counts neither as a pass nor as a fail.

Counted in this score

SSL/TLS
75
Security headers
55
Email security
40
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
66

Not counted

  • NIS2 outside view: Re-weights evidence from the TLS, email, DNS, network and hygiene checks, so counting it would count that evidence twice. Shown on its own.
  • OffSeq Observations: An AI reading of the site, useful context but not reproducible evidence. Shown on its own.

Findings that cap the score at 49

Each of these is serious on its own, so while any is present the site cannot rate better than high risk, however good the other checks are.

  • The certificate is not trusted by browsers
  • The website is not served over HTTPS
  • A database, remote desktop, file-sharing or Telnet service is reachable from the internet
  • The page loads a script from a compromised source
  • The domain registration has expired
  • SPF authorises every server to send mail as the domain

Partial scans

When the site blocks Guard or most checks cannot run, the score covers only the checks that ran (usually DNS and email), is capped at 75 and is shown as partial, without a risk level.

Risk levels

  • Critical0–25
  • High26–49
  • Medium50–75
  • Low76–100

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

The website occupies a niche in the government and non-profit sector focused on fiscal transparency and tax policy research. Its competitive advantage lies in its unique global tax expenditure databases and transparency indices, supported by credible institutional partnerships. The business model is non-commercial, emphasizing open data and policy influence rather than revenue generation. The target audience includes government officials, academics, and civil society organizations interested in tax policy. The presence of multiple publications and active social media channels indicates ongoing engagement and growth potential. The site’s ecosystem includes related subdomains for specialized projects, enhancing its market position as a central resource in this domain.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, use of security plugins (WP Simple Firewall), and anti-bot measures on forms. No sensitive data is exposed in the HTML content. However, the absence of explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options represents an area for improvement. The use of an older Font Awesome version could pose minor risks if vulnerabilities exist. There is no evidence of incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies publicly available, which could be enhanced to improve transparency and readiness. Overall, the security measures are adequate for the site’s purpose but could be strengthened to align with best practices.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  2. Upgrade third-party libraries such as Font Awesome to the latest secure versions.
  3. Introduce a cookie consent banner and explicit cookie policy to improve GDPR compliance.
  4. Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy and incident response contact information to enhance security transparency.
  5. Regularly audit and update security plugins and monitor for vulnerabilities to maintain a strong security posture.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Tax Expenditures
Description
The Tax Expenditures Lab is a hub for expertise, exchange and peer learning on tax expenditures, providing worldwide information on preferential tax treatments such as exemptions, deductions, credits, deferrals and reduced tax rates. It hosts key projects co-led by the Council on Economic Policies (CEP) and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), including the Global Tax Expenditures Database (GTED) and the Global Tax Expenditures Transparency Index (GTETI).
Key services
Global Tax Expenditures Database (GTED), Global Tax Expenditures Transparency Index (GTETI), Research publications, News and policy analysis, Events and community engagement
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, jQuery 3.7.1, Foundation 6.8.1 CSS/JS, Font Awesome 4.7.0, Google Analytics (gtag.js), Contact Form 7 plugin, Burst Statistics plugin, Google Site Kit
Frameworks
Foundation CSS framework
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security plugin (WP Simple Firewall - Shield)
  • Contact forms protected by nonce and anti-bot measures

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Marketing tools
Google Site Kit
Transparency
basic

Site quality

Design
good
User experience
good
Content relevance
excellent
Navigation
good
Professionalism
good
Trustworthiness
high

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and no blocking detected.
  2. WHOIS data is unavailable due to malformed response, indicating privacy protection or query issues.
  3. Site uses HTTPS with good security practices but could improve security headers.
  4. Content is focused on tax expenditure research and transparency with academic and policy orientation.
  5. Contact information is clearly provided with company domain email.
  6. No phone numbers or physical addresses found in the content.
  7. Social media presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube is active.
  8. No cookie consent banner or explicit cookie policy found, which may be a compliance gap.
  9. Site uses WordPress with common plugins and modern frontend frameworks.
  10. No signs of adult or questionable content; content is safe for general audiences.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with a modern frontend stack including Foundation CSS framework and jQuery. It uses Yoast SEO for search optimization and Google Analytics for traffic monitoring. The site loads moderately fast and is mobile optimized with responsive design. The presence of structured data (JSON-LD) enhances SEO and content discoverability. Some technical debt is noted in the use of older Font Awesome versions and lack of advanced security headers. Hosting provider details are not explicit, but the site uses Cloudflare CDN implied by scripts and iframe. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a professional and functional website with room for security and performance enhancements.
Standards and sources

Reference chips under each finding point to the standard, regulation or specification the finding relates to. They are taken from the official datasets below and mapped conservatively: a finding with no defensible link shows none. NIS2 and GDPR references mark where a finding is relevant evidence, not a compliance verdict. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690 binds digital infrastructure and digital service providers; for other entities it is the most detailed public reading of the Article 21 measures. WCAG, EN 301 549, European Accessibility Act and Web Accessibility Directive references name the requirement an automated accessibility rule relates to; they are not a conformance verdict.

Retrieved 2026-10-25

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