The Impact of Tax Burden Overshifting on the Pigovian Taxation

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of excise duty increases on the retail price of gasoline and diesel in the Czech Republic. This study is primarily concerned with the issue of tax burden shifting because of transport fuel excise duties. This paper analyses the tax shifting process by focusing on periodic excise duty increases to identify whether overshifting occurs and what the consequences are for the Pigovian principle of environmental taxation. The research results show that overshifting of tax burden occurs with gradual tax rate increases in selected countries. Therefore, this enables it to be emphasized that overshifting violates the rationale of corrective taxation, increasing the distortionary effects of environmental taxes and substantially decreasing taxes’ efficiency in pollution abatement.