Title: Environmental versus fiscal considerations in taxing energy

Authors: Kalle Maatta

Addresses: PO Box 4, FIN V00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Abstract: There are good reasons to be cautious about integration optimism with respect to energy taxation, i.e. that environmental and fiscal considerations can support each other. Energy taxes are vulnerable to criticism from an environmental point of view, among other things, energy tax legislation has been amended repeatedly and many tax components are narrow-based, leading to environmental ineffectiveness as well as to cost-ineffectiveness. From a fiscal point of view, one might speak about a double-dividend illusion instead of the double-dividend gain.

Keywords: energy tax; environmental tax; environmental effectiveness; cost-effectiveness; the buoyancy and elasticity of tax proceeds; fiscal flexibility; fiscal illusion.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.1999.000851

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 1999 Vol.12 No.7/8, pp.319-331

Published online: 24 Jul 2003 *

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