Tax Coordination Is the Next Step

Abstract

► Most Americans are acutely aware of the European Economic Community's efforts to eliminate internal customs duties and erect a unified external tariff. But thus far EEC efforts to harmonize its diverse fiscal systems have received little, if any, mention. Yet fiscal integration may prove a bigger step toward economic unity than the formation of a customs union. Carl S. Shoup, McVickar Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University, feels that real unification cannot be achieved without some degree of tax harmonization. Prof. Shoup was a member of the Fiscal and Financial Committee appointed by EEC to study the problem of tax integration.