The use of tax expenditures in times of fiscal consolidation

Against the background of recovering growth and remaining fiscal consolidation needs, reforming tax expenditures may offer a promising avenue to raise revenue and, at the same time, improve efficiency of the tax systems. The workshop, held by DG ECFIN on 23 October 2013, addressed the economic and budgetary aspects of tax expenditures, including reporting practices, and discussed the rationale for business tax incentives and the distributional effects of tax reliefs in personal income taxation. The workshop was organised in two sessions: "Tax expenditures: measurement and macroeconomic implications" and "Tax expenditures in direct taxation". The proceedings gather together the views on these various dimensions of tax expenditures expressed by academics, national policy-makers and international institutions during the workshop.