Now it is time to make the single market fairer. With this objective in mind, the Socialists and Democrats call for a reflection on introducing a single market levy that could yield up to €10 billion per year.
This policy brief aims to provide potential justification, design and estimated revenues for a Single Market Levy (SML). The Next Generation Economic Recovery Programme (NGEU) has temporarily increased the expenditure capacity of the EU. The NGEU funds of €750 billion at 2018 prices, which corresponds to €806.9 billion at current prices, would be distributed among the Member States (loans and direct grants) to kickstart their economies, which were harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The need to pay back such debt triggered the proposal of EU resources in the latest EU Own Resources Decision (ORD) and Interinstitutional Agreement (IA) for the period 2021-2027. The foreseen EU own resources are i) national contributions calculated on the weight of non-recycled plastic packaging waste; ii) a carbon border adjustment mechanism and EU Emissions Trading System; iii) a digital levy; iv) a financial transaction tax; v) a financial contribution linked to the corporate sector or to the new common corporate income tax base, Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation (BEFIT). The current landscape offers ‘the right momentum’ to foster a debate on the need for an autonomous SML for the EU.
Authors: Ricardo García Antón and Arjan Lejour
Ricardo García Antón is Assistant Professor of International and European Taxation at Tilburg University (Fiscal Institute Tilburg, The Netherlands); Arjan Lejour is Professor of Taxation and Public Finance at Tilburg University
Read the S&D's press release: S&Ds call for a reflection on a levy for a fairer single market
