The planned movement to the origin principle with the cross-border pre-tax system on a full-scale would lead, ceteris paribus, to changes in VAT revenues in the individual EU countries. For instance, the member countries with trade surpluses and higher VAT rates would be significantly better...

At the end of June 1999 the intra-EU duty free shopping was abolished among the fifteen member nations. The opponents of this resolution argued that such a tax-free sales sector created jobs EU-wide and hardly reduced the value added and excise tax revenue of individual countries. In their...

The size of tax evasion and fraud appears to be increasing steadily in the EU. To a certain extent, the completion of Single Market has further encouraged firms and households evasive behaviour in paying value added taxes in the EU Member States, whereas such efforts have traditionally been most...

The recent process of political and economic transformation in eastern European countries has not only contributed to the decentralisation of political structure but also significantly enhanced the fiscal autonomy of municipalities in these countries. In this context many similar types of public...

Intergovernmental transfers can be either conditional or unconditional with regard to the autonomy of local governments in spending such financial means. Although fiscal decentralisation has recently been quite pronounced in Eastern European transition countries, the dominance of a purpose- and...

This study compares incentive effects of various tax depreciation methods which are currently employed in selected OECD countries. Their generosity is determined on the basis of Samuelson s true economic depreciation. For this purpose, the present value model is applied. The central issue is...

The East Asian miracle was real. Prior to the 1997 economic and currency crises, Asian NICs Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan achieved remarkable annual GDP growth. In these countries the overall economic performance was significantly determined by the industrial development triggered by...

This study discusses European Commission's recent proposal to combat VAT fraud by taxing intra-Community supplies at a common rate of 15%, accompanied by the internal correction of input-tax gap between an importer and his own national tax authority, which is caused by the national VAT rate...

Estonian municipalities should perform a broad range of functions, while their fiscal resources are often limited and large disparities in fiscal capacity prevail among them. Moreover, the power to regulate fiscal affairs is mostly in the hands of the central government. We discuss how a strict...

The additionality principle says that the funds of the European Union should not replace, but be an addition to national regional policy funds. The benchmark for the co-funding is that the EU bears 50% of total costs associated with regional projects eligible for EU support. In some regions,...