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
With the imposition of American tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on March 12th, the European Union was officially pulled into the global trade war.
President Donald Trump surprised many in the tax community by making the global tax deal a day one issue. His Jan. 20 memorandum gave his Treasury secretary 60 days to recommend interactions with tax treaties and possible protective measures to ensure the minimum tax rules have no force or effect in the US.
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
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
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
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
The proposed ad quantum tax would be the system that most closely follows the global best practices for alcohol taxes we previously outlined.
4 min read
With war continuing in Ukraine, political instability in France and Germany, and the return of Donald Trump to the White House, this could be a year of major realignment for Europe. The tax policy mindset in Brussels should shift accordingly.
While tariffs are often presented as tools to enhance US competitiveness, a long history of evidence and recent experience shows they lead to increased costs for consumers and unprotected producers and harmful retaliation, which outweighs the benefits afforded to protected industries.
Artificial intelligence has become an increasingly salient issue for governments. In Europe, the AI question already has turned from how we can embrace it to how we can tax it.
Lawmakers will need to pursue fiscal responsibility as they address the tax law expirations, but fiscal responsibility requires finding sound ways to pay for spending priorities. Tariffs don’t make the cut.
4 min read
Broad, pro-investment tax policy matters for growth, and the US has plenty of opportunities to make improvements, particularly given the advantages our cross-Pacific rival confers on its firms.
5 min read
While there are many factors that affect a country’s economic performance, taxes play an important role. A well-structured tax code is easy for taxpayers to comply with and can promote economic development while raising sufficient revenue for a government’s priorities.
92 min read