Suchergebnisse

The European Union is legally entitled to the revenue from (1) agricultural and sugar levies, (2) customs duties, (3) a 1 percent rate on each Member States' value added tax base, and (4) a resource on the basis of GNP. Currently, the Union is actively involved in the search for a fifth own revenue source. Therefore, the European Commission (DG XIX) has invited the authors to trace who pays the taxes. As requested, our report gives a general account of methods to investigate impacts of taxation. More specifically, we have estimated the incidence of national tax systems (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom), and the incidence of present own resources and prospective new (tax) resources of the European Union. Up till now, such information was not (readily) available. ; Der Europäischen Union werden gesetzlich folgende Einnahmearten zugeschrieben: (1) aus Agrarabschöpfungen, (2) aus Zöllen, (3) Mehrwertsteuer-Eigenmittel und (4) BSPEigenmittel. Gegenwärtig sucht die Europäische Union nach einer fünften Eigenmittelquelle. Daher hat die Europäische Kommission (DG XIX) die Autoren des vorliegenden Beitrags aufgefordert, zu der Frage 'Wer bezahlt die Steuern?' Stellung zu nehmen. Unser Bericht stellt zunächst einmal die Methoden zur Erforschung der Steuerwirkungen dar. Insbesondere haben wir das Aufkommen und die Verteilung nationaler Steuersysteme (Deutschland, Niederlande, Spanien und Großbritannien), der jetzigen EU-Eigenmittel und der zukünftigen Quellen der EU geschätzt. Bis jetzt waren Informationen dieser Art nicht direkt zugänglich.

National policymakers are increasingly aware that their tax policy options are constrained by international tax competition. Important features of national tax systems - notably the tax mix, tax rates and rules which define the tax base - will influence decisions of firms and individuals regarding the location and (re)structuring of economic activities. The aim of the present paper is twofold: Firstly, we detail the tax mix of four member states of the European Union (Germany, The Netherlands, Spain and United Kingdom). Secondly, the paper aims to trace the distribution of the tax burden over rich and poor households in these four countries. Although tax mix and tax rates differ considerably among the four countries included in the study, the distribution of tax burdens proves to be amazingly similar. ; Die Regierenden eines Landes sind sich zunehmend bewußt, daß ihre steuerpolitischen Entscheidungsmöglichkeiten durch internationale Steuerkonkurrenz eingeschränkt werden. Wichtige Eigenschaften der nationalen Steuersysteme - insbesondere zu nennen sind hierbei die Steuerstruktur, die Steuersätze und die Steuervorschriften, die die Besteuerungsbasis definieren - beeinflussen die Entscheidungen der Firmen und der Individuen hinsichtlich der Standorte und (Re)strukturierung der ökonomischen Aktivitäten.Mit dieser Studie verfolgen wir zwei Ziele: Zuerst gehen wir detailliert auf die Steuerzusammensetzung der vier EU-Mitgliedsländer (Deutschland, Niederlande, Spanien und Großbritannien) ein. Zweitens wird die Verteilung der Steuerlast über reiche und arme Haushalte jeweils für die vier Länder aufgezeigt. Obwohl die Steuerstruktur und die Steuersätze zwischen den vier Ländern, die in der Studie betrachtet werden, sehr unterschiedlich ausfallen, ist die Steuerlastverteilung der betrachteten Länder erstaunlich ähnlich

Tropical forests hold 30% of Earth's terrestrial carbon and at least 60% of its terrestrial biodiversity, but forest loss and degradation are jeopardizing these ecosystems. Although the regrowth of secondary forests has the potential to offset some of the losses of carbon and biodiversity, it remains unclear if secondary regeneration will be affected by climate changes such as higher temperatures and more frequent extreme droughts. We used a data set of 10 repeated forest inventories spanning two decades (1999–2017) to investigate carbon and tree species recovery and how climate and landscape context influence carbon dynamics in an older secondary forest located in one of the oldest post‐Columbian agricultural frontiers in the Brazilian Amazon. Carbon accumulation averaged 1.08 Mg·ha−1·yr−1, and species richness was effectively constant over the studied period. Moreover, we provide evidence that secondary forests are vulnerable to drought stress: Carbon balance and growth rates were lower in drier periods. This contrasts with drought responses in primary forests, where changes in carbon dynamics are driven by increased stem mortality. These results highlight an important climate change–vegetation feedback, whereby the increasing dry‐season lengths being observed across parts of Amazonia may reduce the effectiveness of secondary forests in sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change. In addition, the current rate of forest regrowth in this region was low compared with previous pan‐tropical and Amazonian assessments—our secondary forests reached just 41.1% of the average carbon and 56% of the tree diversity in the nearest primary forests—suggesting that these areas are unlikely to return to their original levels on politically meaningful time scales.

© 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. Concerted political attention has focused on reducing deforestation, and this remains the cornerstone of most biodiversity conservation strategies. However, maintaining forest cover may not reduce anthropogenic forest disturbances, which are rarely considered in conservation programmes. These disturbances occur both within forests, including selective logging and wildfires, and at the landscape level, through edge, area and isolation effects. Until now, the combined effect of anthropogenic disturbance on the conservation value of remnant primary forests has remained unknown, making it impossible to assess the relative importance of forest disturbance and forest loss. Here we address these knowledge gaps using a large data set of plants, birds and dung beetles (1,538, 460 and 156 species, respectively) sampled in 36 catchments in the Brazilian state of Pará. Catchments retaining more than 69-80% forest cover lost more conservation value from disturbance than from forest loss. For example, a 20% loss of primary forest, the maximum level of deforestation allowed on Amazonian properties under Brazil's Forest Code, resulted in a 39-54% loss of conservation value: 96-171% more than expected without considering disturbance effects. We extrapolated the disturbance-mediated loss of conservation value throughout Pará, which covers 25% of the Brazilian Amazon. Although disturbed forests retained considerable conservation value compared with deforested areas, the toll of disturbance outside Pará's strictly protected areas is equivalent to the loss of 92,000-139,000 km2 of primary forest. Even this lowest estimate is greater than the area deforested across the entire Brazilian Amazon between 2006 and 2015 (ref. 10). Species distribution models showed that both landscape and within-forest disturbances contributed to biodiversity loss, with the greatest negative effects on species of high conservation and functional value. These results demonstrate an urgent need for policy interventions that go beyond the maintenance of forest cover to safeguard the hyper-diversity of tropical forest ecosystems.

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this record ; The full author list is available in the online article at the DOI in this record ; Aim: Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and in terms of responses to climate change. We quantified global patterns of tree palm relative abundance to help improve understanding of tropical forests and reduce uncertainty about these ecosystems under climate change. Location: Tropical and subtropical moist forests. Time period: Current. Major taxa studied: Palms (Arecaceae). Methods: We assembled a pantropical dataset of 2,548 forest plots (covering 1,191 ha) and quantified tree palm (i.e., ≥10 cm diameter at breast height) abundance relative to co-occurring non-palm trees. We compared the relative abundance of tree palms across biogeographical realms and tested for associations with palaeoclimate stability, current climate, edaphic conditions and metrics of forest structure. Results: On average, the relative abundance of tree palms was more than five times larger between Neotropical locations and other biogeographical realms. Tree palms were absent in most locations outside the Neotropics but present in >80% of Neotropical locations. The relative abundance of tree palms was more strongly associated with local conditions (e.g., higher mean annual precipitation, lower soil fertility, shallower water table and lower plot mean wood density) than metrics of long-term climate stability. Life-form diversity also influenced the patterns; palm assemblages outside the Neotropics comprise many non-tree (e.g., climbing) palms. Finally, we show that tree palms can influence estimates of above-ground biomass, but the magnitude and direction of the effect require additional work. Conclusions: Tree palms are not only quintessentially tropical, but they are also overwhelmingly Neotropical. Future work to understand the contributions of tree palms to biomass estimates and carbon cycling will be particularly crucial in Neotropical forests. ; Natur og Univers, Det Frie Forskningsråd ; European Union Horizon 2020 ; Brazilian National Research Council ; Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) ; Vetenskapsrådet ; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo ; Villum Fonden