A history of the tax package: The principles and issues underlying the community approach.

This article presents an overview of the EU Tax Package, comprising the Code of Conduct for business taxation, the Directive on taxation of savings income and the Directive on taxation of interest and royalty payments. Its main objective is to offer a comprehensive view of the negotiation process, and a broad overview of the content of the package, as well as pending policy issues. This then allows drawing a number of lessons concerning the approach followed and the outlook for future European initiatives on direct taxation.