FairTax contributes to new book on Sustainable Development
NEWS
On September 2015, world leaders committed to achieve, by 2030, an inclusive development model where no one is left behind and planetary boundaries are respected by adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development and its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Progressive Lab for Sustainable Development (PLSD) - a joint initiative of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D) and SOLIDAR - has brought together young researchers, experts and policy-makers to think about the concrete steps that the EU can take to move towards Sustainable Development. The process has resulted in a book: “Progressive Lab for Sustainable Development – From vision to action”, that will be launched on June 8 2017 at the European Parliament.
FairTax researchers Margit Schratzenstaller and Alexander Krenek has contributed to the book with an article where they describe an EU-wide net wealth tax as a possible sustainability-oriented own resource to finance the EU budget. “The increase of wealth inequality in many EU countries has spurred interest in wealth taxation recently. While taxes on wealth for a long time have played only a marginal role in the public finance and taxation literature, in the more recent literature a variety of arguments are brought forward in favour of (higher) wealth taxation in general and in Europe in particular. Most of these arguments directly or indirectly refer to the potential of wealth taxes to contribute to various dimensions of sustainability, in particular to economic, social, and/or institutional/cultural sustainability.” Says Margit Schratzenstaller.
Tax competition has led to an almost complete disappearance of pure net wealth taxes in Europe. “We argue that an EU-wide implementation of a net wealth tax based on harmonized tax provisions may serve as a first step in a longer-term oriented move of the stepwise expansion of net wealth taxes on a global scale. Given the positive sustainability properties of a wealth tax with regard to economic efficiency and social inclusion, we think that a European wealth tax offers itself as an interesting candidate for sustainability-oriented tax-based own resources to finance the EU budget.” Margit Schratzenstaller continues.
