The paper discusses the main arguments for destination- versus origin-based commodity taxation in the European Community's Internal Market. Destination-based solutions necessarily distort commodity trade in the Community because final con-sumer purchases can only be taxed in the origin country....

There is little doubt that the step towards a monetary union in Europe will increase both the distortionary effects of existing differences in national tax systems and the intensity of tax competition for internationally mobile commodity and factor tax bases. This paper discusses selected issues...

An optimal taxation approach is employed to discuss the interaction between factor and commodity taxes for a small open economy when both profit-earning firms and domestic consumers are imperfectly mobile internationally. In this framework, we demonstrate two main results: first, a...

An optimal taxation approach is employed to discuss the interaction between factor and commodity taxes for a small open economy when profit-earning firms are mobile internationally. In this framework, a destination-based commodity tax is shown to be superior to an origin-based VAT from an...

Der Finanzwissenschaftliche Ausschuß des Vereins für Socialpolitik hat 1997 auf der Rostocker Tagung begonnen, sich mit Problemen der Besteuerung zu befassen (vgl. den von A. Oberhauser herausgegebenen Band 'Probleme der Besteuerung I', Berlin 1998). Diese Diskussion wurde 1998 auf der...

Das Papier gibt einen Überblick über die in der jüngeren finanzwissenschaftlichen Literatur diskutierten Konzepte der Progressionsmessung. Methodisch wird dabei Progression als Tarifeigenschaft bzw. als Kaufkraftentzugsphänomen auf individueller und gesamtwirtschaftlicher Ebene sowie mit und...

Quantitative indicators of the tax burden used in political discussions, quite often do not prove very reliable for two reasons; either they are rather crude summary measures or they are rather selectivly chosen benchmark tax load figures. A natural way to improve the situation is to introduce...

The paper first considers two properties of measures of effective progression, proportional yield neutrality and linear decomposability. It is shown that decomposability implies yield neutrality but not the converse. The concept of sensitivity of a measure to progression in various ranges of the...

The paper surveys the characteristics of the common European VAT system, proposed by the EU-Commission to overcome the weaknesses of the transitional European VAT system, which was enacted in 1993 and is still in force. We argue that a harmonized VAT rate will generate substantial costs for EU...