Recent study of the European Commission on taxation trends confirmed the position of Slovakia among the countries with the lowest tax burden in European Union. With total 29,4 % share on GDP, Slovak government imposed the second lowest taxes upon its economy in 2007. Share of direct taxes on GDP has been the lowest in the whole union.
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What is the current state of public finance in the EU countries? How did the various governments reacted to the crisis which developed in the second half of 2008? To what extent did it trigger a change in tax policy? IREF has asked scholars and experts from fifteen different EU countries to present and evaluate the 2008 tax policies of their respective countries.
Introduction by Pierre Garello, Director of the Research Department of IREF
We already knew what the general situation and trends are in the EU. Namely, that the EU- 27 is still the region of the world with the highest fiscal burden, that situations differ greatly among EU member states (with new member countries having lower fiscal burden) and that some trends can be found in the evolution of the tax-mix with, for instance, a weak tendency to replace corporate income tax and labour tax with consumption tax. The reports presented here give life to those statistics. They reveal what were the priorities and constraints of the government in each country?
Les individus pauvres font confiance au marché. C’est la principale conclusion qui ressort d’une récente étude de la Banque mondiale bizarrement passée sous silence par les médias français. Analyse de Nicolas Lecaussin
The system of taxation of corporate profits, introduced in 2000 in Estonia, is unique. Under this system the reinvested profit is not taxed, only the distributed profit is taxed. Thus,…
Abstract: It has been observed that while the respective theoretical merits of fiscal centralisation and decentralisation are debatable, it is even more difficult to empirically assess the degree of centralisation…
Abstract: The idea to compare the fiscal decentralisation and trends in this respect in the European countries is a core for the IREF project. This means that the strict rules of measurement of this complex issue, as fiscal decentralisation is, should be applied to all fiscal systems. Therefore I will follow the description how to generate the index of fiscal decentralisation invented and provided by the prof. Garello and Price . Nevertheless I will also describe and analyze problems which I have met when adopted this scheme into the Polish fiscal system.
Abstract: In this article, German federalism is analyzed through its implications for public spending and for public revenue. The structure of government spending and taxation has evolved in the direction of greater centralisation. This tendency reveals itself (1) in the constitutional changes with regard to taxation, (2) the major territorial reforms and (3) in the increased influence of the federal state on the public spending of inferior levels of government. The evening out between authorities is too egalitarian and the effects on economic development are nefarious.
Abstract: This article points to the highly centralized nature of the British tax system. A first section shows how all tax law derives from Parliament, the “onlie begetter” of legally enforceable instruments. It is suggested that this system is not democratically accountable at sub-national levels of government. Reforms of the Thatcher era have resulted in the privatization of many public services, leading to the stabilization of State expenditure as a proportion of GDP.
Abstract : Switzerland provides a potential laboratory for testing various hypotheses connected with tax competition because of its extremely decentralized fiscal system. Twenty-six cantons (some of them extremely small) have retained the ultimate power of deciding tax questions, and hence not only to limit the Federal level of the State to about 1/3 of total public expenditure, but also to retain absolute power to set their own levels of taxation. Furthermore, citizens can launch referenda on tax issues at any level of government.