Tax policy and tax harmonization in the European Union countries are sensitive topics, both economically as well as politically. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the process of tax harmonization in the European Union with focus on the period from 1990 to the present and on the basis of the analysis to draw conclusions about the overall success of the harmonization. The theoretical part is dealing with tax theory, concepts of tax competition, coordination and harmonization and their impact on the economy. It is also concerning with tax policy in the European Union, its fields, goals and the legal framework. Tax harmonization in the European Union countries is analyzed in the analytical part, which is divided into two parts; the first is dealing with the process of harmonization of indirect taxes and the other with direct taxes. Both analyzes are used to draw conclusions about the success of tax harmonization and also the impacts of harmonization on the tax system in the Czech Republic.

The field of taxation and its influence on economy has been a very actual topic in economic and political discussions recently. It is also a topic very controversial with two fierce groups of opponents standing against each other. Primary goal of this thesis is to analyze an influence of taxation on economy and find enough evidence to be able to say whether tax competition is beneficial or not. The paper is divided into theoretical part focusing on theories of taxation and concepts of international tax competition and practical part which analyses effects of taxation on GDP growth and other macroeconomic variables such as labor markets and international investment.

Cette thèse étudie les effets de mobilité des capitaux sur les politiques publiques dans une situation de sous-emploi. Nous traitons cette question selon trois axes. D'abord, nous introduisons le chômage dans le cadre d'analyse usuel de la concurrence fiscale afin d'étudier l'effet de mobilité du capital sur l'offre de biens publics pour établir que le résultat classique de sous-provision de biens publics est remis en question dès qu'on lève l'hypothèse de plein emploi. Nous menons ensuite une étude de la politique du salaire minimum sous la contrainte de mobilité des capitaux lorsque son rôle est de corriger la répartition des revenus. Nous montrons que la mobilité du capital conduit à la fixation d'un salaire minimum trop faible lorsque les Gouvernements ne sont pas capables de coopération. Enfin, nous analysons dans un troisième axe, l'effet de la mobilité des capitaux sur les politiques publiques en terme d'efficacité lorsque le marché du travail est soumis à des friction. A cet effet, nous utilisons un modèle d'appariement où le stock du capital est exogène. Deux résultats principaux émergent. Le premier résultat montre que le salaire minimum est un moyen d'améliorer l'efficacité du marché du travail en économie fermée; le second est que la mobilité du capital n'affecte pas l'efficacité de la politique du salaire minimum (ainsi conçue) en économie ouverte. / This thesis studies the influence of capital mobility on public policies in an imperfect labor market. We present three contributions to provide some insights on this issue. Firstly, we introduce unemployment into the capital tax competition literature to study the effect of capital mobility on the provision of public goods. Our analysis shows that the usual result of underprovision of public goods is not always preserved in the presence of unemployment. We then investigate the minimum wage policy under the constraint of capital mobility when its role is to adjust the distribution of incomes. We find that, in a non-cooperative context, capital mobility would constrain governments to set lower minimum wages.Finally, we study the influence of capital mobility on the efficiency of labor market policies when governments cannot cooperate. Using a search-matching model with an exogenous stock of capital, we find that implementing a minimum wage can make the decentralized equilibrium coincide with a social optimum in a closed economy. Next we extend the analysis to an n-country economy, the most surprising result being that capital mobility does not affect the efficiency of public policy.

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This paper gives an overview on the research done in the fields of tax competition, coordination and harmonisation. The survey is divided in two main parts, in the first section we compare the standard tax competition literature that sees tax competition as a bad, to public choice contributions that advocate tax reductions. In the second part we consider theories of endogenous growth, which focus on analysing the taxation question. After introducing the fundamental contributions, we discuss extensions in the line of an open economy, an OLG setting and the transitional dynamics in greater detail. (author's abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers SFB International Tax Coordination

Segundo a legislação de regência, o ICMS é exigido pelos Estados e preponderantemente na origem. A competência estadual para a exigência de exação pautada em base tributária móvel, aliada à concentração da arrecadação na origem, criou ambiente convidativo à concorrência dos Estados pela concentração dos contribuintes em seu próprio território. A realidade socioeconômica, cultural e geopolítica do Brasil, no entanto, torna essa concorrência degenerativa, pautada na instituição de benefícios fiscais tidos por irregulares há mais de quarenta anos. Como resposta, os Estados prejudicados ajuízam ações, contra o ente que outorgou o benefício, com vistas a anular o incentivo. A resposta judicial, no entanto, não corresponde ao dinamismo dos impactos econômicos que derivam da instituição dessas políticas irregulares. Em função disso, os Estados alteraram o foco de sua insurgência. Recentemente, passaram a promover a glosa dos créditos apropriados pelos seus próprios contribuintes em decorrência da aquisição, em operação interestadual, de mercadorias gravadas com benefício fiscal no Estado de origem. Como o crédito é outorgado pelo Estado de origem, na prática o Estado de destino exige o valor que deixou de ser cobrado pelo de origem. Assim procedem escudados no artigo 8o da Lei Complementar no 24/75, que estabelece a nulidade do ato e a ineficácia do crédito fiscal atribuído ao estabelecimento recebedor da mercadoria e a exigibilidade do imposto não pago ou devolvido. Todavia, a repartição de competências para a exigência do ICMS trouxe campo de atuação bem demarcado para cada ente subnacional. Logo, considerando que o Brasil está estruturado em regime federativo, não pode um Estado se apropriar de tributo de competência de seu par. Se o benefício é irregular, é dever do Estado de origem exigir os valores, comportamento que pode ser obrigado a adotar por força de ordem judicial. Sendo assim, interpretação conforme a Constituição do dispositivo em foco autoriza que o Estado de origem e apenas ele reconheça, exclusivamente nas hipóteses de isenção irregularmente outorgadas, a nulidade do ato, a ineficácia do crédito fiscal atribuído ao estabelecimento recebedor da mercadoria em operações internas e a exigibilidade do imposto não pago. / Brazilian sales tax is levied by States and predominantly in origin basis. Both high mobility of the tax base in this case, and the taxation mainly in origin, led Brazilian states to fiscal competition. Socioeconomic, cultural and geopolitical context in Brazil, however, make this competition harmful, based on the institution of irregular tax benefits for over forty years. In reaction, victim states file lawsuits against the ones who granted the benefit aiming to nullify the incentive. The correspondent judgment, however, is issued long time after the economic impacts of the irregular incentives take place. As a result, States have changed the focus of their reaction. Recently started to disallow taxpayers to appropriate credits due to the acquisition of goods originated from another State awarded with tax benefit in the origin State. As the benefit is granted by the origin State, in reality destination State levies the tax that the origin State waivered. This practice is allegedly supported in Article 8 of Law 24/75, which establishes both the disallowance of the credits, and the duty to charge the tax unpaid due to the irregular benefit. However, Brazil is structured as a federation, a form of organization that secretes financial matters of each State. Therefore, a State cannot pocket the amount that could be levied by its pair. If the benefit granted to the taxpayer is irregular, the origin State shall have to levy the amount, procedure that may be imposed by the Courts. Thus, Article 8 should be construed in the following sense: fiscal authorities can disallow the credit only if the benefit is in discordance with constitutional provision of non cumulative ICMS, and, above all, only the origin state can proceed this way.

隨著人類的經濟活動發展造成環境的污染，近年來，人們開始注重環境的保護，並試著在經濟發展和環境保護之間取得平衡，本文便以此想法結合地區之間的租稅競爭，進而研究地方政府之間在環境政策的競爭是否會造成環境品質的向下沉淪 (race to the bottom)。本文中的地方政府利用對製造污染的廠商課徵資本稅(本文以從量稅和從價稅為例，但資本稅稅率為外生條件)以做為公共財的財源，同時管制廠商所排放的污染量。 本文主要得到了三個結論：(1) 地方政府之間競爭的結果將會造成環境政策的向下沉淪；(2) 在單位稅額相同的情況下，地方政府選擇以從量稅或從價稅課徵資本稅，並不影響環境政策向下沉淪的程度，以及 (3) 影響環境政策向下沉淪的因素主要取決於該地方政府面臨的競爭對手數量，競爭的轄區愈多，環境政策向下沉淪的程度愈甚。 / As the development of economy, the environment becomes much polluted. In recent years, environment protection has become an important issue, and people have tried to strike a balance between the development of economy and environment protection. In this thesis, we combine this idea and tax competition among jurisdictions, and discuss the issue that whether the tax competition among jurisdictions leads to “the race of bottom.” In this environmental quality, the local governments levy tax on the capital of polluting industries, with either unit tax or ad valorem tax and with fixed tax rate, and use the tax revenues to finance public goods. Each government also imposes a cap on firms’ emissions. I obtain three main results: (1) The competition between local governments will lead to the race to the bottom in environment policy. (2) Given the same revenue per unit of tax, both the unit tax and the ad valorem tax lead to the same environmental policy. (3) The level of race to the bottom in environment policy depends on the number of the competitors to the local government. As the number of jurisdictions increases, the more the level of race to the bottom in the environment policy. Key words: environment policy, capital tax, tax competition

Segundo a legislação de regência, o ICMS é exigido pelos Estados e preponderantemente na origem. A competência estadual para a exigência de exação pautada em base tributária móvel, aliada à concentração da arrecadação na origem, criou ambiente convidativo à concorrência dos Estados pela concentração dos contribuintes em seu próprio território. A realidade socioeconômica, cultural e geopolítica do Brasil, no entanto, torna essa concorrência degenerativa, pautada na instituição de benefícios fiscais tidos por irregulares há mais de quarenta anos. Como resposta, os Estados prejudicados ajuízam ações, contra o ente que outorgou o benefício, com vistas a anular o incentivo. A resposta judicial, no entanto, não corresponde ao dinamismo dos impactos econômicos que derivam da instituição dessas políticas irregulares. Em função disso, os Estados alteraram o foco de sua insurgência. Recentemente, passaram a promover a glosa dos créditos apropriados pelos seus próprios contribuintes em decorrência da aquisição, em operação interestadual, de mercadorias gravadas com benefício fiscal no Estado de origem. Como o crédito é outorgado pelo Estado de origem, na prática o Estado de destino exige o valor que deixou de ser cobrado pelo de origem. Assim procedem escudados no artigo 8o da Lei Complementar no 24/75, que estabelece a nulidade do ato e a ineficácia do crédito fiscal atribuído ao estabelecimento recebedor da mercadoria e a exigibilidade do imposto não pago ou devolvido. Todavia, a repartição de competências para a exigência do ICMS trouxe campo de atuação bem demarcado para cada ente subnacional. Logo, considerando que o Brasil está estruturado em regime federativo, não pode um Estado se apropriar de tributo de competência de seu par. Se o benefício é irregular, é dever do Estado de origem exigir os valores, comportamento que pode ser obrigado a adotar por força de ordem judicial. Sendo assim, interpretação conforme a Constituição do dispositivo em foco autoriza que o Estado de origem e apenas ele reconheça, exclusivamente nas hipóteses de isenção irregularmente outorgadas, a nulidade do ato, a ineficácia do crédito fiscal atribuído ao estabelecimento recebedor da mercadoria em operações internas e a exigibilidade do imposto não pago. / Brazilian sales tax is levied by States and predominantly in origin basis. Both high mobility of the tax base in this case, and the taxation mainly in origin, led Brazilian states to fiscal competition. Socioeconomic, cultural and geopolitical context in Brazil, however, make this competition harmful, based on the institution of irregular tax benefits for over forty years. In reaction, victim states file lawsuits against the ones who granted the benefit aiming to nullify the incentive. The correspondent judgment, however, is issued long time after the economic impacts of the irregular incentives take place. As a result, States have changed the focus of their reaction. Recently started to disallow taxpayers to appropriate credits due to the acquisition of goods originated from another State awarded with tax benefit in the origin State. As the benefit is granted by the origin State, in reality destination State levies the tax that the origin State waivered. This practice is allegedly supported in Article 8 of Law 24/75, which establishes both the disallowance of the credits, and the duty to charge the tax unpaid due to the irregular benefit. However, Brazil is structured as a federation, a form of organization that secretes financial matters of each State. Therefore, a State cannot pocket the amount that could be levied by its pair. If the benefit granted to the taxpayer is irregular, the origin State shall have to levy the amount, procedure that may be imposed by the Courts. Thus, Article 8 should be construed in the following sense: fiscal authorities can disallow the credit only if the benefit is in discordance with constitutional provision of non cumulative ICMS, and, above all, only the origin state can proceed this way.

The paper deals with the issue of contemporary flat-tax reforms in Eastern Europe and aims to account for the different approaches that various European countries adopted towards the idea of a flat-tax. Empirically, the work is based on detailed studies of Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany. The analysis considers three factors being decisive for the flat-tax feasibility: 1./ party system institutionalization, 2./ coalition/opposition cohesiveness, 3./ labor union institutionalization. First, the study is concerned with each of the factor's influence on the political decision-making process in the three country cases. Secondly, on country paired comparisons the findings for each of the countries are mutually contrasted. Although all identified factors seem to be at play with regard to flat-tax feasibility, I argue that it is either the strength or the weakness of labor unions' institutionalization and welfare identity that underlie the political decision-making in the East and the West and as a result determine the flat-tax (un-)feasibility. The absence of welfare identity in the East allows for higher coalition cohesion in favor and weaker opposition against the flattax adoption in contrast to the West. / Series: Discussion Papers SFB International Tax Coordination

The subject matter of the thesis is a comparative analysis of the possibilities of tax competition in the USA and in the European Union. It aims to compare the extent and form of the tax competition within these systems. The thesis consists of five parts. At the beginning, the term tax competition is examined and the possibility of a distinction between fair and unfair tax practices is explored. In the next part the analysis of the US tax system with a focus on competition in the area of direct and indirect taxation is carried out. The third part provides similarly structured analysis of the tax competition in the EU. The fourth part presents the evaluation and the comparison of the tax competition in both systems. The final part concludes with certain normative recommendations for the future of the EU tax system which are made with respect to their applicability for current deliberation of the reform of the taxation in the European Union. The performed analysis yielded interesting results. Contrary to the expectations, it was determined that the tax competition in the US was more intense than in the EU and the tax practices used by some US states included at least the same level of unfairness as those used by some member states in the EU.