House leaders proudly unveiled a $32 billion budget this week that avoids new taxes and fees by paring back 280 individual spending accounts and even ordering agencies to put contracts for services out to bid. But the lawmakers didn’t touch a host of tax incentives that cost the state an estimated $26 billion a year and whose effectiveness is unclear.

Over the years, Massachusetts has approved dozens and dozens of tax incentives to benefit industries and individuals and then largely forgotten about them. A report released today by the Pew Center on the States indicates Massachusetts is not alone. No state regularly tests whether its tax incentives are working as intended and then uses that information to decide whether to renew them, the report says.

The Pew Center report says 13 states, including Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Iowa, Connecticut, and Wisconsin, are the best in evaluating tax incentives. Another 12 states, including Massachusetts, have mixed results. The remaining 25 states plus the District of Columbia do almost nothing.

“Tax incentives cost billions of dollars every year, and states rely heavily on them to promote economic development,” the report said. “Policy makers should know whether these tools deliver a strong return on investment.”

The Massachusetts Tax Expenditure Commission, a group of state officials, lawmakers, academics, and business people, is preparing to recommend that the overall number of so-called tax expenditures be reduced and those that remain be evaluated regularly for their effectiveness. Eventually, tax expenditures, just like spending line items, could become part of the state’s annual budget deliberations.

According to the Pew report, a new Oregon law requires all tax credits to expire every six years unless lawmakers renew them. During the 2011 budget deliberations, lawmakers reduced how much could be spent on expiring tax incentives, which forced them to make choices about which ones should continue.

The Pew report indicates film tax credits are being hotly debated in many states, and some research is being done on their effectiveness.

In New Mexico, one study done by New Mexico State University in 2008 indicated the state’s film tax credit was a big money loser while a separate study conducted the following year for the state film office indicated the tax credit was an economic success. The state ultimately capped the film tax credit program at $50 million a year.

The experience of Massachusetts was cited in the Pew report. It noted the state Department of Revenue issued a report indicating the state’s film tax credit created 1,643 jobs in 2009 but the spending cuts required to pay for the tax credits reduced employment by 1,421 jobs, for a net gain of 222 jobs. The cost of the tax credits was $70 million, so each of the new jobs cost taxpayers more than $300,000. A year later, another DOR report concluded the film tax credit cost more Massachusetts jobs than it created. In 2010, Gov. Deval Patrick proposed capping the state’s film tax credit at $50 million, but he ultimately backed away from that proposal under pressure from the Legislature and movie makers.

The Massachusetts Revenue Department’s annual reports on the state’s film tax credit are a bit odd. They are full of data but draw no conclusions. It’s as if the agency is afraid of taking a stand, which is probably the case since the issue has become highly politicized.

By contrast, a 2009 report by the Wisconsin Department of Commerce raised a warning flag about what the agency said were fundamental flaws with that state’s film tax credit, which in many ways is similar to the one in Massachusetts.

The agency pulled no punches in the report’s opening statement, saying the film tax credit is “really expensive,” compares poorly to tax incentives for other industries, and represents an “unlimited liability” for the state. The agency then used spending and jobs data from the Johnny Depp film Public Enemies to make its point that the film tax credit was more of a benefit to Hollywood than Wisconsin.

“It takes 365 Wisconsin residents, working for one year, to generate enough income tax revenue to subsidize one Hollywood director who comes to Wisconsin to work for two months,” the report said. Wisconsin’s governor, using his veto power, subsequently capped the film tax credit at $500,000 a year.