Instead of abolishing internal border controls in 1993, the European Union (EU) replaced them with VAT and statistical requirements that appear to be just as onerous. For Dutch businesses, the compliance costs of the new requirements are, on average, 5 per cent of the value of their intra-EU...

Ten Central and Eastern European countries, as well as Cyprus and Malta, have applied for membership of the European Union. Membership involves, among others, alignment of the taxes on tobacco products. Within the acquis communautaire, accession countries can choose between a predominantly...

The European Commission is evaluating the performance of the common VAT, which has many shortcomings. The numerous exemptions and differentiated rate structures violate the logic and functionality of the VAT. The exemptions distort input choices and outsourcing policies. Reduced rates are...

This paper surveys and evaluates the corporation tax (CT) systems of the Member States of the European Union on the basis of a comprehensive taxonomy of actual and potential regimes, which have as their base either profits, profits and interest, or economic rents. The current regimes give rise...

As economic integration within the European Union (EU) progresses, the interactions between the tax systems of the Member States are of growing importance. Member State tax policies can have spillover effects on other Member States and differing abilities to provide net fiscal benefits to...

Farmers are often exempted from VAT for administrative and political reasons. But this means that the VAT on their inputs cannot be "washed out" through the tax deduction/credit mechanism. To compensate farmers for the uncompensated VAT on inputs, the EU has devised a flat-rate scheme that...

The harmonized European value-added tax (VAT) is anything but a modern consumption tax that taxes all goods and services at a uniform rate. As exemplified by an analysis of the Dutch version, some 60% of the base is exempted, that is, not taxed on output but on inputs. This has serious...