Vers une fiscalité européenne ?

In: Revue de l'OFCE, Band 31, Heft 1, S. 121-189

Abstract

As the deadline for completion of the European internal market approaches, tax harmonisation becomes the major concern on the European policy agenda. Until now, the debate has only focused on the taxes which have direct incidence on the process of removing fron tiers barriers : indirect taxes and taxation of income from financial assets. Though the changes are likely to be very small and partial in the short term, the need for some modifications in national tax systems offers good opportunity for more general reflexion about the rationale of tax structures in Europe. This reflexion has to take into account the constraints induced by complete market integration and the necessities of allowing for some national specificities that are likely to persist, such as differences in demographic trends or in the degree of public sector involvment in the supply of certain goods and social services. Moreover, the prospect of monetary unification calls for discussion of how instruments and responsabilities ought to be shared in matter of stabilisation policy. First we analyse the major differences between existing national tax systems in Europe, the United-States and Japan, and present the current state of Community finance. We then briefly discuss the general economic principles of taxation. In the third section different ways of harmonising taxes are explored, trying to reconcile the constraints of harmonisation and the national specificities and sovereignties. These general conclusions are then applied to more detailed study of those taxes that ought to be harmonised taxes on financial assets income, corporate income taxes, VAT and excise duties or possibly transfered to the Community level in the event of an increase in the size of the Community budget. Finally we use the MIMOSA multinational macromodel to simulate the short and medium run macroeconomic consequences of various harmonisation hypotheses.