Public Budgets in the Czech Republic - Searching the Root of Imbalance

The article sums up the Czech Economic Association's seminar ""Public Budgets in the Czech Republic"" held in April 2000 in Prague. Various presenters outlined the basic theoretical underpinnings of fiscal policy analysis and sought to quantify the structural and cyclical part of Czech public budgets. Focus was paid to an often overlooked aspect of taxation in the Czech Republic ? compliance costs and the European Union's influence on Czech taxation policy. It was agreed that the root of the Czech state's fiscal problem lays on the spending side of state budgets and that revenues are already stretched to the limit, with the possible exception of revenues from environmental taxes.