Europe without fiscal frontiers: An assessment

Proposals for approximating and harmonising indirect taxes across Europe are central to the planned creation of a single European market in 1992. If implemented, the Commission's proposals would have major direct and indirect effects for a wide variety of European business. They would also have very large effects on the revenue position, tax structures, and tax administrations of member states. For this reason, they are very unlikely to be implemented, and since partial harmonisation is no more possible than partial pregnancy, it follows that the realistic prospect of fiscal frontiers being dismantled in 1992, or in any forseeable time frame, is small. It is important that business planning should be based, not on loose generalisations about the coming single European market, but on a careful assessment of what changes are likely to be implemented in practice.