Manfred Rose - Böcker

Eine ökonomische und rechtliche Analyse der derzeitigen Besteuerung sowie der Entwurf von Reformvorschlägen erfordern ein Leitbild für die optimale Struktur des Steuersystems. In der aktuellen Diskussion haben sich die Gewichte zugunsten einer Besteuerung des Konsums verschoben. Der Konsum ist in einer marktwirtschaftlichen Ordnung unter Effizienz- und Gerechtigkeitsaspekten eine ideale Steuerbemessungsgrundlage. Erstmals erscheint damit im Weltmaßstab eine Harmonisierung von Besteuerungsidealen möglich. Im vorliegenden Band werden die Vor- und Nachteile einer konsumorientierten Neuordnung des Steuersystems von führenden Wissenschaftlern des In- und Auslandes diskutiert.

Ihre in diesem Band veröffentlichten Beiträge richten sich auf Deutschlands Reformfähigkeit überhaupt, die Leitbilder eines zukünftigen Steuer- und Sozialsystems, ein möglichst einfaches und zugleich faires Steuersystem, ein generationengerechtes Rentensystem und die Integration von Steuer- und Transfersystem.

Hans-Werner Sinn, Munich, West Germany This book contains 15 papers presented at a conference in Neresheim, West Ger­ many, in June 1986. The articles were selected by anonymous referees and most of them have undergone substantial revisions since their presentation. The common topic is measurement of welfare, both from efficiency and from equity perspectives. For many economists, welfare is a diffuse, arbitrary and am­ biguous concept. The papers collected in this book show that this view is not justified. Though not beyond all doubt, welfare theory today is crisp and clear, offering fairly straightforward measuring concepts. It even comes up with numbers that measure society's advantage or disadvantage from specific policy options in monetary units. Politicians get something they can intuitively understand and argue with, and they do not have to be afraid that all this is metaphysics or the result of the scientist's personal value judgements. Some economists, whom I would classify as belonging to the "everything is optimal" school, would claim that providing politicians with numerical welfare measures is superfluous or even dangerous. The world is as it is, and any attempt to give policy advice can only make things worse. I do not share this view. There are good policies and there are bad ones, but it may not be easy to distinguish between them. There is a role for consulting politicians, Dr.

A tax reform policy aiming at a growth of prosperity requires basic guidelines. These would have to serve as a standard evaluation model for the precise assessment of the current tax system and the development of tax reform proposals. For market economies the concept of a consumption-based tax system is gaining increasing importance, especially with respect to economic efficiency. An ideal concept for reforming direct taxes would be the requirement of aligning tax bases directly to consumed income, that is, to exempt saved and invested income from taxation. The present volume contains papers dealing with the pros and cons of such a consumption-based tax system and of taxing lifetime consumption. Papers presented in this volume come from leading international scientists who discuss the tax reform under theoretical, political, legal and administrative aspects.