(September 28, 2015)
On September 28, 2015 the European Commission published Institutional Paper 008 – Tax Reforms in EU Member States 2015 - Tax policy challenges for economic growth and fiscal sustainability.
The report 2015, which was published by the Commission’s Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) and the Directorate General for Taxation and Customs (TAXUD), presents an overview of recent tax reforms in the Member States and gives an indication of their performance in major areas of tax policy.
According to a press release issued by the European Commission, one of the most important challenges for many Member States is to reduce the tax burden on labour. Acknowledging this challenge, euro area Finance Ministers recently committed to benchmarking the performance of their countries in this area to the EU average. Further challenges identified by the report include the design of housing taxation systems, the preferential treatment of debt in corporate income taxation, tax compliance particularly in VAT, the efficiency of tax administrations, and improving fairness.
The report starts by providing an Executive Summary and subsequently discusses a.o. the following subjects:
1. Recent reforms of tax systems in the EU
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Main trends in taxation
1.3. Developing more employment-friendly tax systems
1.3.1. Taxation of labour
1.3.2. Increased reliance on tax bases less detrimental to growth
1.4. Developing more investment-friendly tax systems
1.5. Fighting tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance
1.5.1. Reducing tax fraud and tax evasion
1.5.2. Tackling tax avoidance
2. Challenges related to fiscal sustainability and the tax burden on labour
2.1. The role of taxation in ensuring fiscal sustainability
2.2. Need to reduce the tax burden on labour
2.3. Scope to reduce the tax burden on labour
2.3.1. Scope for a partly unfinanced labour tax reduction
2.3.2. Scope to shift the tax burden from labour to less distortive taxes
2.3.3. Summary of findings on the need and scope for a reduction in labour tax
2.4. Effectively targeting the reduction in labour tax
3. Challenges related to broadening tax bases and other design issues
3.1. Consumption taxes
3.1.1. Broadening the VAT base
3.1.2. Implementation of the ‘VAT destination principle’ in telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services
3.1.3. VAT on energy
3.1.4. VAT deductibility on company cars
3.2. Property and housing taxation
3.2.1. Taxes on immovable property: size and structure
3.2.2. Design issues in housing taxation
3.3. Debt bias in corporate taxation
3.3.1. The debt bias in Member States
3.3.2. Addressing the debt bias: the different policy options
3.4. Developments in financial sector taxation
3.5. Budgetary and Distributional effects of Tax Expenditures relating to Pensions and Housing
3.5.1. Tax expenditures relating to pensions
3.5.2. Tax expenditures relating to housing
3.6. R&D tax incentives
3.7. Environmentally-related taxation
3.7.1. Energy taxes
3.7.2. Vehicle taxes
4. Tax governance and redistribution
4.1. Improving tax governance
4.2. Measuring the tax compliance gap
4.3. Reducing the tax compliance gap by improving tax administration
4.4. Wealth and inheritance taxes from a redistributive perspective
4.4.1. Introduction
4.4.2. Wealth taxation
4.4.3. Housing taxation between efficiency and equity
4.4.4. How should wealth taxes be designed? Net wealth and inheritance taxes
4.4.5. Taxes on wealth and transfers of wealth: the role of EU-level policymaking
4.5. Distributional effect of consumption taxes
5. Overview of tax policy challenges
Click here to be forwarded to Institutional Paper 008 – Tax Reforms in EU Member States 2015 - Tax policy challenges for economic growth and fiscal sustainability.
Copyright – internationaltaxplaza.info
Stay informed: Subscribe to International Tax Plaza’s Newsletter
and
Follow International Tax Plaza on Twitter (@IntTaxPlaza)
