The tax-to-GDP ratio rose steadily in most EU countries up to the late 1990s, largely reflecting a sustained expansion of public sector commitments to welfare provision. Since the late 1990s, many EU countries have cut tax rates. However, the tax burden in the EU area remains much higher than in...

In this paper, we evaluate and critique ten principal claims made in recent debates on the estate tax, distinguishing five types of statements: facts, rhetoric, value judgments, economic reasoning, and informed speculation. Economics cannot fully resolve policy debats because economic knowledge...

This paper focuses on the relationship between tax reforms and environmental quality in Italy. First, we analyse some of the characteristics of the tax system. Within a dynamic model, we estimate the marginal distortion introduced by different taxes and show that the system is far from being...

The paper studies the effects of green tax reforms within a walrasian computable general equilibrium model of the Italian economy calibrated on a microconsistent data set derived from the Input-Output table for the year 1990. Tax reforms increase taxation on the energy sector either through an...

The 1986 Tax Reform Act (TRA86) was designed to improve three aspects of the tax code: efficiency, equity, and simplicity. TRA86 accomplished all three goals in some measure by reducing the standard rates, increasing the standard deduction, and ending various tax expenditures that distributed...

In recent years there has been a constant discussion of the need to reform value added tax and this discussion has become increasingly relevant with the development of a long-term strategy for socio-economic development. Whereas some have proposed that the rate of VAT should be reduced, more...

In this paper we aim to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the fiscal consolidation package adopted recently by the Italian Government in order to achieve a balanced budget by 2013. Revenues are forecasted to increase by more than 3.3 GDP percentage points; these stem mostly from indirect...

The report examines tax policy uncertainty, noting that academic literature on tax uncertainty has failed to address so-called rent seeking. The authors build on the work of Baumol (1990), who contends that it is not just the degree of entrepreneurship that is central to economic growth but also...

Despite the frequency of tax changes and their potential importance to investors, there has been relatively little modeling of anticipated tax changes. Yet whether future tax reforms are predictable or not will have an enormous effect on estimates of the impact of current tax policies. This...