EU budget commissioner Janusz Lewandowski has caused some raised eyebrows in European capitals today after FT Deutschland published comments about imposing a new tax on EU citizens that would go directly to Brussels. As member states emerge from recession and are looking for cost-saving measures they will be more receptive to the imposition of this new tax, the commissioner said. But how would such an idea go down with the European public? No doubt it wouldn't be popular, but would Europeans still revolt against the tax even if it actually ended up saving them money?Right now most of the EU budget is contributed to Brussels from member state governments, and there is no direct tax on EU citizens to pay for the bloc's administration. Taxpayers are already paying for the EU, but they do it through their taxes to the member state governments, which in turn then send money to Brussels. It would be as if in the US, you didn't pay any federal tax but only tax to your state, which then in turn sent a chunk of money to Washington each year.
What the commission may propose in September is to move some of that taxation directly to a transaction between the individual taxpayer and Brussels. It's still unclear what form this could take, but it could include an EU tax on luxury items, air travel or large financial transactions.
