The Tax System in Industrialized Countries

This book provides a systematic and comparative analysis of the tax systems of ten countries (G7 plus Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden) over the last decade. All the main taxation areas are covered, together with a description of the underlying policy themes. The main focus is on recent and prospective tax reforms.

This volume is the only book to provide a comparative and systematic analysis of the tax systems of the major industrialized nations (the G7 plus Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden) over the last decade. An introductory chapter compares the tax levels, structures, and systems of the ten, notes differences between government preoccupations in mid-1980s and mid-1990s, and unusual tax features of particular countries, before speculating on likely changes in the remaining years of the century. In the ten main chapters, individual national experts providein a standardized format to facilitate comparisondetails of all the significant taxes and important changes in relation to specific policy considerations such as fiscal deficits, savings and investment incentives, income distribution effects, and administrative and compliance costs. The country chapters conclude with a summary of recent and prospective tax reforms, which in each case takes account of the underlying economic conditions and political climate.