The significance of environmental taxes in EU budgetary revenues
Abstract
The objective of the present article was to determine the amount of income from environmental taxes to EU national budgets and the changes that took place over the last 10 years (from 2006 to 2018). In terms of theoretical knowledge, however, an attempt was made to define the theoretical foundations for the functioning of environmental taxes in the EU. It was pointed out that the term ‘environmental taxes’ in the EU terminology is a technical term, not linked to the theoretical assumptions of a Pigovian tax. However, the increasing pressure in the EU to replace environmental taxes with standard taxes is justified by the phenomenon of double dividend. On the basis of Eurostat data, during the period under review a slight increase in the importance of environmental taxes was observed, however, it varies considerably across the EU. It was observed that the amount of payments is strictly connected to the Energy consumption. In the largest EU economies, environmental taxes revenues account for between 4.3% and 8.5% of all tax revenues, which, on average, for the EU as a whole accounts for 2.41% of GDP.
Keywords:
environmental taxes, a Pigovian tax, externalities, tax revenuesReferences
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The Warsaw University of Life Sciences https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8848-1122
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
