The European Union is legally entitled to the revenue from (1) agricultural and sugar
levies, (2) customs duties, (3) a 1 percent rate on each Member States' value added tax
base, and (4) a resource on the basis of GNP. Currently, the Union is actively involved
in the search for a fifth own revenue source. Therefore, the European Commission (DG
XIX) has invited the authors to trace 'who pays the taxes'. As requested, our report gives
a general account of methods to investigate impacts of taxation. More specifically, we
have estimated the incidence of national tax systems (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain
and the United Kingdom), and the incidence of present own resources and prospective
new (tax) resources of the European Union. Up till now, such information was not
(readily) available