Policymakers should aim for neutral tax policies that support stable revenues like VATs and avoid inviting trade conflicts with discriminatory and economically harmful policies like DSTs.
6 min read
The empirical evidence thus far on sugar-sweetened beverage taxes fails to support claims that these taxes will create substantial health benefits. At the same time, their structural limitations make them ill-suited for generating stable, equitable revenue.
54 min read
Many countries’ personal income tax systems tax various sources of individual income—including investment income such as dividends and capital gains.
4 min read
An update to the EU’s Excise Tax Directive that embraces harm reduction principles would save lives and provide a steady stream of revenue to support public health expenditures.
22 min read
Tax legislation in 2025 may have good reason to address international corporate income taxes, because of scheduled changes slated to go into effect or because of international developments like the Pillar Two agreement.
63 min read
Capital gains taxes create a bias against saving, leading to a lower level of national income by encouraging present consumption over investment.
5 min read
The agreement represents a major change for tax competition, and many countries will be rethinking their tax policies for multinationals. If there is no agreement on changes to Pillar Two or digital services taxes, retaliatory American tariffs could be on the horizon.
8 min read
Wealth taxes not only collect little revenue and create legal uncertainty, but an OECD report argues that they can also disincentivize entrepreneurship, harming innovation and long-term growth.
5 min read
The next government needs to prioritize measures to improve Germany’s competitiveness as an investment location.
7 min read
The variety of approaches to taxation among European countries creates a need to evaluate these systems relative to each other. For that purpose, we have developed the European Tax Policy Scorecard—a relative comparison of European countries’ tax systems.
55 min read
The Trump administration appears to be moving in a “reciprocal” policy direction despite the significant negative economic consequences for American consumers of across-the-board tariffs on goods coming into the US. However, the EU’s VAT system should not be used as a justification for retaliatory tariffs.
6 min read
Denmark (55.9 percent), France (55.4 percent), and Austria (55 percent) levy the highest top personal income tax rates in Europe.
4 min read
In a recent survey regarding companies’ barriers to conducting business in the EU single market, VAT ranked first. Policymakers should invest in reforming VAT systems to close both compliance and policy gaps in ways that improve the overall efficiency of their tax systems.
7 min read
As the third-largest economy in the world, with an influential voice within EU policymaking, and the United States among its most important trading partners, Germany’s next government will play a particularly important role in deciding the direction of European tax, trade, and transatlantic policy.
6 min read
In a recent speech at the Davos Economic Forum, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced plans to create a single set of rules for corporate law, insolvency, labor law, and taxation, under which companies could seamlessly operate across the European Single Market.
7 min read
More than 175 countries worldwide—including all major European countries—levy a value-added tax (VAT) on goods and services. EU Member States’ VAT rates vary across countries, though they’re somewhat harmonized by the EU.
5 min read
This week, the incoming Trump administration issued a day-one executive order on the global minimum tax agreement known as Pillar Two, which seeks to ensure multinational corporations pay at least 15 percent in income tax.
6 min read
Some European countries have raised their statutory corporate rates over the past year, including Czechia, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, and Slovenia.
3 min read
In most European OECD countries, corporate income is taxed twice, once at the entity level and once at the shareholder level.
4 min read
18 of the 27 EU Member States have implemented both the income inclusion rule and the qualified domestic minimum top-up tax in 2024.
4 min read