Taxes at the Crossing

The common reasons compelling tax reform are, generally, complexity (including administrative and compliance costs), lack of equity, uncertain elasticity, and high tax burdens. All discretionary changes must be ultimately analyzed with respect to international relations. The amount of revenue?i. e., the tax burden?is derived to an extent from the preferred level of the collective redistribution. The current extent of redistribution in the Czech Republic implies the application of relatively complex taxes with a distorting impact. The challenge that lies ahead is one of a global restructuring of tax burdens and/or the implementation of new tax concepts (and a parallel rejection of the current ones). In particular, it would seem productive to analyze the transition from current income taxes and value-added tax to cash-flow taxes, including personal expenditure tax, possibly in the integrated form of the flat tax. The problems associated with this concept are linked to their practical international implications and the difficulties that would accompany the necessary transitional measures. Immediate implementation of a flat tax without relevant trade-offs is simply not viable.