IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eso/journl/v44y2013i4p489-510.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax Policy Challenges in EU Countries: A Few Lessons from the 2012 Commission Tax Reform Report and the European Semester

Author

Listed:
  • Gilles Mourre

    (European Commission (DG ECFIN); Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB); Belgium)

Abstract

The 2012 Commission Tax Reform Report and the 2013 European Semester point to a series of challenges affecting tax policy in EU Member States in the context of fiscal consolidation. These concern the potential need and scope for consolidating public finance on the revenue side and rationalising the tax system by shifting tax away from labour to least growth-detrimental bases, broadening tax bases, improving tax design and enhancing tax governance. Only a few countries are not affected by at least one of these issues, which call for an ambitious and resolute reform effort, also paying attention to the redistributive effects. This complements actions improving the global tax governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Gilles Mourre, 2013. "Tax Policy Challenges in EU Countries: A Few Lessons from the 2012 Commission Tax Reform Report and the European Semester," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 44(4), pages 489-510.
  • Handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:44:y:2013:i:4:p:489-510
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esr.ie/article/view/92/72
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Savina Princen & Gilles Mourre & Dario Paternoster & George-Marian Isbasoiu, 2013. "Discretionary tax measures: pattern and impact on tax elasticities," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 499, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    2. Devereux, Michael P. & Lockwood, Ben & Redoano, Michela, 2008. "Do countries compete over corporate tax rates?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1210-1235, June.
    3. Thomas Piketty, 2013. "Should We Make the Richest Pay to Meet Fiscal Adjustment Needs?," Post-Print halshs-00944889, HAL.
    4. Günter Coenen & Christopher J. Erceg & Charles Freedman & Davide Furceri & Michael Kumhof & René Lalonde & Douglas Laxton & Jesper Lindé & Annabelle Mourougane & Dirk Muir & Susanna Mursula & Carlos d, 2012. "Effects of Fiscal Stimulus in Structural Models," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 22-68, January.
    5. (IFS), Institute for Fiscal Studies (ed.), 2010. "Dimensions of Tax Design: The Mirrlees Review," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199553754.
    6. Xing, Jing, 2012. "Tax structure and growth: How robust is the empirical evidence?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 379-382.
    7. Christian Gayer & Gilles Mourre, 2012. "Property taxation and enhanced tax administration in challenging times," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 463, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    8. Fuest, Clemens & Spengel, Christoph & Finke, Katharina & Heckemeyer, Jost H. & Nusser, Hannah, 2013. "Profit shifting and 'aggressive' tax planning by multinational firms: Issues and options for reform," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-078, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. J. Stephen Ferris, 2013. "Fiscal policy," Chapters, in: William F. Shughart II & Laura Razzolini & Michael Reksulak (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Public Choice, Second Edition, chapter 16, pages 260-283, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Jens Matthias Arnold & Bert Brys & Christopher Heady & Åsa Johansson & Cyrille Schwellnus & Laura Vartia, 2011. "Tax Policy for Economic Recovery and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(550), pages 59-80, February.
    11. Werner Roeger & Jan in 't Veld, 2010. "Fiscal stimulus and exit strategies in the EU: a model-based analysis," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 426, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    12. Savina Princen & Gilles Mourre, 2013. "The role of tax policy in times of fiscal consolidation," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 502, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicolae-Bogdan Ianc & Thierry Baudassé, 2021. "How Can Culture Affect Taxation? A Postmaterialism Value Approach," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 63(3), pages 466-488, September.
    2. Nicolae-Bogdan IANC & Thierry BAUDASSE, 2021. "How can culture affect taxation? A postmaterialism value approach," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2848, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    3. Florian Wöhlbier & Caterina Astarita & Gilles Mourre, 2018. "Growth†Friendly Tax Structures: An Indicator†Based Approach," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 19(1), pages 32-73, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Florian Wöhlbier & Caterina Astarita & Gilles Mourre, 2014. "Consolidation on the revenue side and growth-friendly tax structures: an indicator based approach," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 513, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    2. Florian Wöhlbier & Caterina Astarita & Gilles Mourre, 2018. "Growth†Friendly Tax Structures: An Indicator†Based Approach," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 19(1), pages 32-73, February.
    3. European Commission, 2013. "Tax reforms in EU Member States - Tax policy challenges for economic growth and fiscal sustainability – 2013 Report," Taxation Papers 38, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    4. Sanz Labrador, Ismael & Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2013. "Política fiscal y crecimiento económico: consideraciones microeconómicas y relaciones macroeconómicas," Macroeconomía del Desarrollo 5367, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    5. Gechert, Sebastian & Heimberger, Philipp, 2022. "Do corporate tax cuts boost economic growth?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    6. Nicolas Carnot & Francisco de Castro, 2015. "The Discretionary Fiscal Effort: An Assessment of Fiscal Policy and Its Output Effect," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 215(4), pages 63-94, December.
    7. Bofinger, Peter & Schnabel, Isabel & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Wieland, Volker, 2015. "Zukunftsfähigkeit in den Mittelpunkt. Jahresgutachten 2015/16 [Focus on Future Viability. Annual Report 2015/16]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201516.
    8. Alexander Krenek & Margit Schratzenstaller, 2018. "A European Net Wealth Tax," WIFO Working Papers 561, WIFO.
    9. European Commission, 2012. "Tax reforms in EU Member States - Tax policy challenges for economic growth and fiscal sustainability – 2012 Report," Taxation Papers 34, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    10. Oguzhan Akgun & David Bartolini & Boris Cournède, 2017. "The capacity of governments to raise taxes," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1407, OECD Publishing.
    11. Marco Alfò & Lorenzo Carbonari & Giovanni Trovato, 2020. "On the Effects of Taxation on Growth: an Empirical Assessment," CEIS Research Paper 480, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 08 May 2020.
    12. Langenmayr, Dominika & Haufler, Andreas & Bauer, Christian J., 2015. "Should tax policy favor high- or low-productivity firms?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 18-34.
    13. Bletzinger, Tilman & Lalik, Magdalena, 2017. "The impact of constrained monetary policy on fiscal multipliers on output and inflation," Working Paper Series 2019, European Central Bank.
    14. Lisa Evers & Helen Miller & Christoph Spengel, 2015. "Intellectual property box regimes: effective tax rates and tax policy considerations," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(3), pages 502-530, June.
    15. Jacquinot, Pascal & Clancy, Daragh & Lozej, Matija, 2014. "The effects of government spending in a small open economy within a monetary union," Working Paper Series 1727, European Central Bank.
    16. Norman Gemmell & Richard Kneller & Ismael Sanz, 2014. "The growth effects of tax rates in the OECD," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1217-1255, November.
    17. Jocelyn Boussard & Benoît Campagne, 2017. "Fiscal policy coordination in a monetary union at the zero lower bound," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 494-495-4, pages 65-90.
    18. Crivelli, Ernesto & Gupta, Sanjeev, 2014. "Resource blessing, revenue curse? Domestic revenue effort in resource-rich countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 88-101.
    19. Bauer, Christian & Davies, Ronald B. & Haufler, Andreas, 2014. "Economic integration and the optimal corporate tax structure with heterogeneous firms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 42-56.
    20. Nazila Alinaghi & W. Robert Reed, 2021. "Taxes and Economic Growth in OECD Countries: A Meta-analysis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 49(1), pages 3-40, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:44:y:2013:i:4:p:489-510. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Aedin Doris (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.esr.ie .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.