DYNAMICS OF EUROPEAN TAX STRUCTURES

The paper is focusing on the European Union countries tax structure changes during the last decade. Deep economic recession in the 2009-2010 and critical sovereign debt levels have forced the European Union countries rethink their tax systems effectiveness to restore growth. One of the aspects of taxation system improvements is related with modifications in of tax structure. There is argued, that the tax structure has an important impact on growth. Taxes supposed not only to facilitate smooth cross border trade activities, but also should generate proper public revenue and not to harm economic growth. Therefore, the Commission invites to increase quality of taxation through more growth-friendly tax structure. The main purpose is to shifting tax burden from “labor to consumption”. The paper maps structural changes in taxation across the EU countries groups. Actually the most of structural changes takes place in the New Member States; at the same time the old EU countries tax structure has remained mostly unchanged. The new EU member states have decreased income taxation burden and increased taxes on consumption.