| 1. |
- Dellinger, Fanny, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability-oriented Future EU Funding : A European Nuclear Power Tax
- 2017
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nuclear power plays an important role in Europe’s energy mix today. Considering the manifold environmental and health hazards related to all phases of nuclear power production which may cause considerable negative externalities it is remarkable that the whole issue of using taxes as instruments to internalise the externalities associated with nuclear power is completely neglected in the literature. The paper provides a rationale for taxing nuclear power which is based on an analysis of its social costs and of potential windfall profits for the nuclear industry generated by EU policies. After giving an overview of existing nuclear taxes in the nuclear power-generating EU Member States, we elaborate the case for channelling revenues from a nuclear power tax into the EU budget as sustainability-oriented tax-based own resource replacing a part of national contributions within a fiscally neutral approach to reform the current system of own resources. Finally, the potential revenues from an EU-wide nuclear power tax are estimated.
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| 2. |
- Fink, Marian, et al.
(författare)
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Policy Recommendations on the Gender Effects of Changes in Tax Bases, Rates, and Units : Results of Microsimulation Analyses for Six Selected EU Member States
- 2019
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- The design of tax systems has a considerable impact on the personal distribution of income and wealth at the household and the individual level, and due to the gender-differentiated socio-economic conditions also in a gender perspective. One of the most important areas of taxation is the taxation of personal incomes through the personal income tax. It directly influences the after-tax distribution of incomes from the various income sources. Besides the level of income tax rates and the design of the income tax schedule (progressive versus flat tax schedule), the system of household taxation (joint versus individual taxation), the determination of taxable income and the design of tax exemptions (tax allowances versus credits), particularly child-related ones, are crucial determinants in this respect. In addition to the gender-differentiated distributional impact, income tax systems may also have a gender-differentiated effect on work incentives and the distribution of paid and unpaid work between men and women. It is important to note that these gender-differentiated effects imply an implicit tax bias of income tax systems which results from different socio-economic conditions and behavioural patterns of women and men, while modern income tax systems do not include any tax provisions linked to gender and thus do not contain any explicit tax bias.Against this background, the paper presents an overview of the microsimulation results for selected provisions of the personal income tax system done with EUROMOD for six selected Member States of the European Union (EU): Germany, Austria, Spain, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, and Sweden. These Member States were selected because they belong to different “families of taxation” with different traditions, institutional, historical and cultural factors and developments, and different religious and partisan influences shaping the evolution of (personal income) tax systems.Overall, our simulations show that the design of income tax schedules, systems of household taxation and (tax-related) child benefits has non-negligible effects on income distribution as well as work incentives in general and particularly from a gender perspective for the six EU Member States considered. Although the effects differ across countries, particularly on the level of household types, depending on the concrete design of the tax benefit system and the interactions between tax and benefit provisions, some general tendencies and effects can be identified.Firstly, the introduction of a flat tax hardly impacts the simulated poverty risk, but increases income inequality. Gender-differentiated effects are less clear-cut, and their extent differs across countries. However, generally a flat tax benefits couple households with a male active income contributor, while households with female active income contributors lose. Rather pronounced gender differences can also be found between active lone mothers and fathers. While in almost all countries active lone mothers lose from the introduction of a flat tax, active lone fathers are winners.Secondly, replacing individual taxation by a joint taxation system with income splitting has small effects on the poverty risk only, but decreases income inequality in all countries analysed. The introduction of joint taxation with income splitting benefits couple households with one active income contributor in almost all countries included, regardless of the existence of children and of the gender of the active income contributor. Gender-differentiated effects are almost non-existent in childless couple households with one active income contributor. They are a little more pronounced if there are children in the household, due to income differences between spouses.Thirdly, our simulations show that the various child benefits have the expected overall distributional effects. Replacing an existing child benefit granted as cash transfer by tax-related child benefits raises the poverty risk and income inequality. Moreover, the inequality- and poverty-increasing effect of a child tax allowance is estimated to be higher compared to that of a child tax credit. Gender-differentiated effects are not clear-cut and require deeper analyses.Overall, one central result of our analyses is that the extent of gender differences in the effects of the various simulation scenarios differs markedly across the countries included. It remains to be explored, in a next step, to what extent these cross-country differences in the gender-differentiated impact of policy measures are associated with the prevailing welfare state / family of taxation types.
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| 3. |
- Gunnarsson, Åsa, et al.
(författare)
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Gender Equality and Taxation in the European Union : Study for the FEMM Committee
- 2017
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Rapport (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- This study provides an overview over gender aspects in taxation at Member State and EU level. After an outline of gender gaps in socioeconomic realities across Member States, relevant for taxation, the implementation of gender aspects at EU and Member State level and the existing legal approaches and obligations are reviewed critically. Research results on gender-disaggregated effects are presented for the taxation of personal income, corporations and business income, property, and consumption. Finally, the study presents recommendations on how to improve gender equality in taxation
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| 4. |
- Krenek, Alexander, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability-oriented EU Taxes : The Example of a European Carbon-based Flight Ticket Tax
- 2016
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- Taxing the aviation sector at the EU level and using the resulting revenues to reduce Member States’ contributions to finance the EU budget presents itself as a huge opportunity not only to decrease carbon emissions effectively, but also to reform the EU system of own resources. The aviation sector is a small but fast growing emitter of carbon dioxide. The failed attempts of several EU Member States to introduce a flight ticket tax and the pressure on those EU Member States still levying such a tax clearly demonstrate the limits of national aviation taxation. Assigning any kind of taxes on flight tickets to the EU level would greatly reduce the tax enforcement problems inherent to mobile tax bases and put a stop to harmful tax competition between EU Member States. A double dividend, consisting of a reduction of CO2 on the one side and a boost for the economy on the other side, is a likely scenario if additional tax revenues are spent in the right way. Therefore, in this paper it is proposed that all revenues from a European carbon-based ticket tax should be used to reduce contributions of Member States to the EU budget. This would allow national governments to reduce taxes more harmful for growth and employment, in particular the high tax burden on labour. Given the current political and legal situation a European carbon-based ticket tax has better chances of implementation compared to a tax on aviation fuel and is therefore a financial instrument which could foster sustainable growth in the very near future. The paper estimates the expected revenue from implementing a carbon-based flight ticket tax at the EU level and revenue distribution across EU Member States. In particular, we propose that every passenger departing from an airport within the EU and every passenger arriving from outside the EU at an EU-based airport is subjected to this new carbon tax which is calculated individually for every route flown. The paper uses a new and very exact data set, which (depending on the country) assigns to approximately 75% to 90% of the respective intra and extra EU routes flown in the year 2014 the corresponding carbon dioxide emissions per passenger (using the ICAO methodology). Based on the demand elasticities provided by IATA (2007), we are thus able to exactly calculate the tax revenues per passenger per route that could have been generated in 2014 by introducing a carbon-based flight ticket tax in the EU.
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| 5. |
- Krenek, Alexander, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability-oriented Future EU Funding : A European border carbon adjustment
- 2018
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- The need to reform EU funding and recent political developments such as Brexit and the withdrawal from the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement could revitalize the debate about the introduction of border carbon adjustments (BCA) for the European emission trading system (ETS). The introduction of a BCA would allow the EU to phase out current carbon leakage provisions of the ETS and to auction off all emission allowances, thus rendering the ETS a more effective unilateral tool to price and reduce carbon emissions. By using a dynamic new Keynesian (DYNK) model, we estimate that a BCA for the ETS would generate substantial and stable revenues. Given different assumptions about the development of the carbon intensity of non-EU production and different BCA designs we find that estimated revenues would suffice to finance between a third and all of current EU expenditures by the year 2027, thus allowing Member States to reduce their current contributions to the EU budget accordingly. Administered at the EU borders a BCA would represent a sustainability-oriented instrument to finance the EU allowing EU Member States to cut more distortionary taxes such as those on labour, thereby increasing growth- and employment-friendliness of taxation. The proposed measure could thus contribute to tackle both environmental and fiscal challenges currently facing the EU.
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| 6. |
- Krenek, Alexander, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability-oriented future EU funding : a European net wealth tax
- 2017
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- The increase of wealth inequality in many EU countries has spurred interest in wealth taxation. While taxes on wealth for a long time have played only a marginal role in the public finance and taxation literature, in the more recent literature a variety of arguments are brought forward in favour of (higher) wealth taxation. Most of these arguments directly or indirectly refer to the potential of wealth taxes to contribute to various dimensions of sustainability, in particular to economic, social, and/or institutional/cultural sustainability. Tax competition has led to an almost complete disappearance of recurrent taxes on personal or corporate net wealth in Europe. EU-wide implementation of a net wealth tax based on harmonised tax provisions may serve as a first step in a longer-term oriented move of the stepwise expansion of net wealth taxes on a global scale. By dealing with non- and under-reporting in the Household and Consumption Survey (HFCS) data set provided by the European Central Bank, we are able to estimate the wealth distribution within 20 EU Member States. Applying a progressive household-based tax schedule with a tax rate of 1% for net wealth above € 1 million and 1.5% for net wealth above € 5 million on these adjusted wealth distributions yields potential tax revenues of € 156 billion, taking into account the behavioural responses of individuals triggered by net wealth taxation. Given the positive sustainability properties of a net wealth tax with regard to economic efficiency and social inclusion, a European net wealth tax offers itself as an interesting candidate for sustainability-oriented tax-based own resources to finance the EU budget.
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| 7. |
- Nerudová, Danuše, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability-oriented Future EU Funding : A Fuel Tax Surcharge
- 2018
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- The paper analyses the potential of a surcharge on national fuel taxes as sustainability-oriented own resource to finance the EU budget. Our estimations show that such a surcharge could yield substantial revenues, ranging between € 12.93 billion (for a surcharge of 0.03 €) and 86.2 billion (for a surcharge of 0.2 €) per year. Besides the contribution an EU fuel tax would make to various sustainability-related EU goals and strategies, it would help to address two specific problems inherent in the current EU system of fuel taxation. An EU fuel tax designed as a surcharge on national fuel taxes would decrease the existing tax bias in favour of diesel, as the surcharge would be levied uniformly on gasoline and diesel, which in most EU Member States is taxed at lower rates, alike. Moreover, by increasing national fuel tax rates, the surcharge would – depending on its level – mitigate or even remove the “under-taxation” of fuel in relation to the minimum fuel tax rates stipulated in the EU Energy Tax Directive in a number of Member States, which is caused by the absence of regular inflation adjustment of nominal fuel tax rates.
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| 8. |
- Nerudová, Danuše, et al.
(författare)
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The Financial Transactions Tax as Tax-based Own Resource for the EU Budget
- 2017
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Rapport (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Key FindingsA broad-based financial transactions tax presents itself as a suitable instrument to simultaneously raise revenues and curb highly speculative and potentially destabilising short-term financial transactions.The introduction of an FTT within Enhanced Cooperation in the EU may serve as a pilot, representing the first step towards an EU-wide implementation.Under a Brexit scenario, an FTT introduced by a “Coalition of the Willing” including 10 EU Member States could yield € 4 to € 33 billion.The FTT is an interesting option for tax-based own resources partially substituting current own resources to finance the EU budget, allowing Member States to cut their national contributions to the EU budget and thus creating budgetary space to cut national taxes more harmful for growth and employment (in particular the high taxes on labour).
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| 9. |
- Schratzenstaller, Margit, et al.
(författare)
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EU taxes as genuine own resource to finance the EU budget : pros, cons and sustainability-oriented criteria to evaluate potential tax candidates
- 2016
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- EU taxes play a key role in political and economic discussions about the future of the EU own resource system, and their desirability can vary accordingly. It is therefore essential to clearly articulate the goals which are to be achieved by the introduction of this new financing tool. This paper provides a critical overview of advantages and disadvantages of EU taxes. Reviewing the conventional fiscal federalism and political economy literature on this topic it can be concluded that there is no obvious (overall) case for funding the EU budget with EU taxes rather than with contributions by Member States which currently make up for the lion’s share of EU own resources. There are, however, some specific issues arising from a sustainability perspective, which could be addressed with the introduction of EU taxes. Departing from a comprehensive concept of sustainability, which is based on the economic, the social, the environmental and the cultural/institutional pillar of sustainability, the paper reviews sustainability gaps in taxation in the EU. EU taxes if designed accordingly may be suitable instruments to reduce these sustainability gaps. The paper also develops criteria based on the four dimensions of sustainability that may be used in a next step to evaluate potential candidates for EU taxes.
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| 10. |
- Schratzenstaller, Margit, et al.
(författare)
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Tax-based own resources to finance the EU budget : potential revenues, summary evaluation from a sustainability perspective, and implementation aspects
- 2019
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- The existing EU system of own resources financing EU expenditures does not make any positive contribution to the various EU strategies and policies implemented to cope with the manifold long-term challenges confronting the EU. It is against this background that the European Commission as well as the High Level Group on Own Resources, but also the European Parliament have (repeatedly) called for the introduction of tax-based own resources to partially substitute national contributions to the EU budget. Our specific contribution to this debate consists in the exploration of sustainability-oriented options for tax-based own resources which are able to support sustainable growth and development in the EU. Based on a concept of sustainability-oriented taxation in the context of own resources for the EU, we develop sustainability-oriented evaluation criteria to assess the suitability of specific candidates for tax-based own resources. We then present various options for tax-based own resources and estimations of their revenue potential. Moreover, a summary evaluation of these options based on our evaluation criteria is undertaken. Finally, we address implementation aspects. In particular, we briefly present and discuss potential models to implement tax-based own resources in the EU within the existing legal framework.
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