The EU needs a genuine freeze on the tax burden

The EU needs a genuine freeze on the tax burden – – Press the Reset Button now! Regulation and new EU own Resources must be scrutinised

The Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE) welcomes the initiative by a group of EU Member States, led by Austria, for a ‘European Year of Implementation and Consolidation’. The call to first review, simplify and consistently implement existing European regulations before creating ever more new ones echoes a long-standing demand of the Taxpayers Association of Europe.
“Europe does not have too few rules. The problem is rather that regulations, reporting obligations and documentation requirements are increasingly overlapping. Anyone wishing to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness must therefore not only talk about new support programmes, but above all reduce existing burdens,” explains Michael Jäger, President of the European taxpayers’ organisation, the Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE).
From the TAE’s perspective, however, a ‘consolidation year’ must not be merely a temporary moratorium. What is needed is a fundamental review of the European regulatory framework. Existing regulations must be examined to determine whether they are still necessary, proportionate and efficient, and whether their European added value justifies the associated costs.
The European Commission itself presented a ‘Regulatory Deep Cleaning Action Plan’ in April 2026 and announced that it would, amongst other things, review the areas of taxation, the single market, customs, the digital sector, energy and the environment for redundant, contradictory or duplicated regulations. The TAE expects this to result in measurable relief for citizens and businesses.

TAE demands: Every new burden must be justified

The Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE) calls in particular for:

• Review existing regulations before introducing new ones: Before new notification, documentation or reporting obligations are introduced, existing requirements must be reviewed with a view to simplification, consolidation or abolition.
• Take the overall burden into account: Impact assessments must consider not only the individual new regulation, but also the cumulative costs of bureaucracy, transition and compliance for businesses and citizens.
• Take subsidiarity seriously: Not every political problem requires a new European regulation. The EU should only take action where European intervention creates demonstrable added value.
• Make competitiveness a binding benchmark: New regulations must be assessed in terms of their impact on investment, innovation, growth and, in particular, small and medium-sized enterprises.
• Ensuring planning certainty: Businesses and citizens need clear, stable and reliable rules rather than a constant stream of new or amended requirements.

Sound fiscal and economic policy requires simple rules, legal certainty and a reliable framework; frequent changes, on the other hand, incur additional costs that hit smaller businesses particularly hard.
A freeze on new burdens must also apply to new EU own Resources For the TAE, the debate on less regulation must not be separated from European tax and budgetary policy.

“It would be contradictory to call for a freeze on regulatory burdens on the one hand, whilst introducing new European taxes and levies on the other. What applies to new regulations must also apply to new sources of revenue for the European Union: first review, simplify and set priorities – rather than reflexively creating new burdens,” said Jäger.

The Taxpayers Association of Europe is therefore particularly critical of the additional EU own resources under discussion in connection with the Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028–2034. These include, amongst other things, the EU corporate tax ‘Corporate Resource for Europe’ (CORE), revenue from tobacco taxes and other new European sources of funding.

Instead of new EU own resources, the TAE calls for the following:
No new EU taxes and no creeping expansion of European tax sovereignty until existing expenditure, programmes and administrative structures have been thoroughly reviewed for necessity, efficiency and European added value.

“A European year of consolidation can be an important first step. However, it must be more than just a twelve-month pause. Instead of a temporary reprieve, we must press the reset button and scrutinise all regulations and projects, assessing their necessity and added value. Anything that does not bring us added value and does not lead to greater growth must be critically examined. Europe needs a lasting change of course: fewer new burdens, more subsidiarity, more transparency and a thorough review of what already exists. Only in this way can competitiveness and taxpayers’ confidence be strengthened in the long term,” Jäger concluded.