Tax Policy in the European Union: A Review of Issues and Options

As economic integration within the European Union (EU) progresses, the interactions between the tax systems of the Member States are of growing importance. Member State tax policies can have spillover effects on other Member States and differing abilities to provide net fiscal benefits to residents may impair the efficient allocation of productive factors across the EU. These considerations have important implications for the design and coordination of tax systems in the EU. Following a survey of tax developments and a review of the criteria that should govern the tax relationships between the Member States, this paper analyzes the issues and options that Member States face when levying and coordinating their taxes on consumption, labor and capital.

Tobacco taxation in the European Union

Later this year, the European Commission has to submit a report to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament with its views on tobacco tax policy in the EU. A 2004 publication issued by the Commission expressed the beliefs that tobacco consumption should be controlled by increasing tobacco excises and that harmonisation should proceed on the basis of specific rates. This paper reviews and evaluates EU tobacco tax policies. It supports the move towards specific taxation, but notes that there are conceptual and empirical limits to excessively high tobacco taxes. Smokers appear to pay their way and cigarette smuggling is a growing menace to health and revenue objectives.

Company Taxes in the European Union: Criteria and Options for Reform

In 1992, the Ruding Committee, appointed by the European Commission to examine the need for company tax (CT) harmonisation in the European Union (EU), presented its findings and recommendations.2 Although the Committee concluded that differences in CTs distort the workings of the internal market — differences which most likely would not be eliminated by market forces or tax competition — it none the less proposed to leave the CTs in the EU essentially the same as it had found them, replete with their widely diverging domestic and cross-border treatment of different kinds of returns and different kinds of recipients of the various returns. As argued below, however, differential treatment will perpetuate the distortions inherent to the current CTs and erode the taxing authority of source states. A minimum statutory CT rate of 30 per cent, proposed by the Ruding Committee, and the adoption of the (draft)

How Should Tobacco Be Taxed in EU-Accession Countries?

Ten Central and Eastern European countries, as well as Cyprus and Malta, have applied for membership of the European Union. Membership involves, among others, alignment of the taxes on tobacco products. Within the acquis communautaire, accession countries can choose between a predominantly specific and a predominantly ad valorem excise regime. The choice affectsrevenue, tobacco consumption control, and EU competition. Thispaper examines the arguments and concludes that a predominantlyspecific regime seems to be the preferred choice.

Tobacco Taxation in the European Union

Later this year, the European Commission has to submit a report to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament with its views on tobacco tax policy in the EU. A 2004 publication issued by the Commission expressed the beliefs that tobacco consumption should be controlled by increasing tobacco excises and that harmonization should proceed on the basis of specific rates. This article reviews and evaluates EU tobacco tax policies. It supports the move towards specific taxation, but notes that there are conceptual and empirical limits to excessively high tobacco taxes. Smokers appear to pay their way and cigarette smuggling is a growing menace to health and revenue objectives.tobacco taxation, European Union

FUNDAMENTAL TAX REFORM IN THE NETHERLANDS

The Dutch Parliament has passed legislation for a new income tax that abolishes the current tax on personal capital income and substitutes it by a presumptive capital income tax, which is in fact a net wealth tax. This paper contrasts this wealth tax with a conventional realization-based capital gains tax, a retrospective capital gains tax which attempts to charge interest on the deferred tax, and a capital accretion tax which taxes capital gains as they accrue. None of the approaches meets all criteria for a ''good'' income tax, i.e., equity, efficiency, and administrative feasibility. We thus conclude that the effective and neutral taxation of capital income can best be ensured through a combination of (a) a capital accretion tax to capture the returns on easy-to-value financial products, (b) a capital gains tax with interest to tax the returns on hard-to-value real estate and small businesses, and (c) a broad presumptive capital income tax, i.e., a net wealth tax, to account for the utility of holding wealth. We favor uniform and moderate proportional tax rates in the context of a dual income tax under which capital income is taxed separately from labor income.public economics ;

What Kind of Corporation Tax Regime?

This article explores the taxation of corporations in the wider context of capital income taxation. The article discusses pros and cons of various income-based and cash-flow forms of corporation tax (CT) and concludes that the dual income tax (DIT), which taxes all capital income at the proportional CT rate, is to be preferred over other forms of taxing capital income. The DIT is best attuned to the reality of capital mobility and is not held hostage by the higher tax on labour income. Levied at a uniform flat rate, the DIT minimizes opportunities for tax arbitrage

Tax policy in the european union, A review of issues and options

As economic integration within the European Union (EU) progresses, the interactions between the tax systems of the Member States are of growing importance. Member State tax policies can have spillover effects on other Member States and differing abilities to provide net fiscal benefits to residents may impair the efficient allocation of productive factors across the EU. These considerations have important implications for the design and coordination of tax systems in the EU. Following a survey of tax developments and a review of the criteria that should govern the tax relationships between the Member States, this paper analyzes the issues and options that Member States face when levying and coordinating their taxes on consumption, labor and capital.Economics ;

Three VAT Studies

This volume presents three studies on the VAT. The first study is a VAT primer for lawyers, economists, and accountants who rarely talk to each other about tax issues, particularly in the Netherlands. The different views illuminate the nature and workings of the VAT. The second study examines and evaluates VAT coordination in the EU against the backdrop of an analysis of VAT fraud. Carousel fraud is dwarfed by shadow economy fraud and contrived insolvency fraud. The taxation of intracommunity exports is not the solution to VAT coordination problems. Rather the focus should be on cross-border VAT audit, followed up, if necessary, by investigation and prosecution of fraudsters. The third study argues that value changes in exempt immovable property should be brought into the VAT base, similar to value changes in other second-hand goods that are traded by taxable dealers. This extension of the VAT base should replace the inequitable and distortionary transfer or registration taxes and stamp duties on transactions in immovable property that are currently levied in the various member states.

Corporation taxes in the European Union: Slowly moving toward comprehensive business income taxation?

This paper surveys and evaluates the corporation tax systems of the Member States of the European Union on the basis of a comprehensive taxonomy of actual and potential regimes, which have as their base either profits; profits, interest and royalties; or economic rents. The current regimes give rise to various instate and interstate spillovers, which violate the basic tenets—neutrality and subsidiarity—of the single market. The trade-offs between the implications of these tenets—harmonization and diversity, respectively—can be reconciled by a bottom-up strategy of strengthening source-based taxation and narrowing differences in tax rates. The strategy starts with dual income taxation, proceeds with final source withholding taxes and rate coordination, and is made complete by comprehensive business income taxation. Common base and cash flow taxation are not favored