This ground-breaking study of entrepreneurship in Europe is a greatly expanded and updated version, in English, of the author's thesis published in Dutch in 1996. Its far-reaching analysis focuses on "bottlenecks" and cross-border problems confronting European entrepreneurs in the areas of income tax, corporate income tax, and value-added tax.
Four countries are chosen as representative of all the tax systems existing within the EC: The Netherlands, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
The author spares no detail in his examination, explaining such important elements and distinctions as the following:
how the entrepreneur is viewed under the varying tax regimes and in the different countries; entrepreneurship and the professions; incentives; sources of income; partnerships; companies and shareholders; calculation of taxable profit; justification for a separate corporate income tax; taxation of foundations and societies; and the possibility of fiscal unity among Member States for VAT purposes.
In the course if this rigorous analysis, the author identifies the domestic tax provisions that hamper the full establishment of the single market envisioned by the EC Treaty.
The lasting importance of this invaluable book cannot be overestimated. For taxation professionals and scholars -- in Europe of course, but in other countries too -- it will open new vistas of understanding, thought, and policy.
- Introduction
1.0. Introduction
1.1. Purpose of the study
1.2. Scope of the study
1.3. Working definitions
1.4. Method of law comparison
1.5. Country choice
- The Entrepreneurship Concept in the Income Tax Act
2.0. Introduction
2.1. History and main features of the income tax
2.2. Qualification as an entrepreneur
2.3. The professions
2.4. Taxation of business profits
2.5. Entrepreneurial incentives
2.6. The source
2.7. Partnerships
- The Entrepreneurship Concept in the Corporate Income Tax Act
3.0. Introduction
3.1. Development and legal base of the corporate income tax
3.2. The definition of the term corporate body
3.3. Taxation of companies and their shareholders
3.4. Taxable entities
3.5. The fictitious business concept
3.6. Trade in loss making companies
3.7. Group Taxation
3.8. Taxation of public bodies
- The Entrepreneurship Concept of Value-Added Tax
4.0. Introduction
4.1. History of the Value-Added Tax
4.2. The importance of the entrepreneurship
4.3. Requirements of entrepreneurship
4.4. The professions
4.5. Agriculture
4.6. Extension of entrepreneurship through option
4.7. Occasional activities
4.8. Quasi-entrepreneurship
4.9. Group Taxation
4.10. Public bodies
- Final Conclusion