Bureaucratic Tax-seeking: The Danish Waste Tax.

Two main results in traditional tax theory states the following. First, general taxes minimize the welfare loss from changed relative prices. Second, because the total public budget tends to exceed the optimal size, a leader (here named "troop leader") is needed in the budget process to prevent over-taxation. Nevertheless, differentiated taxes initiated by individual ministries generate a still larger proportion of total tax revenue, in particular under cover of taxing externalities such as environmental pollution.