European Taxpayers Association (TAE) Warns Against Expansion of EU Own Resources – “Wave of Burdens For Citizens and Businesses Is Looming”
TAE demands: EU Commission must stop planned expansion of own resources in the next financial framework!
The Commission plans to present a first package for the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) 2028-2034 on July 16, 2025. A second package on more technical dossiers is to follow on September 17, 2025. This concerns the volume of the EU financial framework, which is yet to be determined, and the composition of the next own resources package.
The first package alone sets off alarm bells for the Taxpayers Association, as it specifically lists the item “New Own Resources”. Yet, some proposals from previous own resources packages of December 2021 (COM (2021) 566 final) and June 2023 (COM(2023) 330 final) will be retained.
The EU Commission openly proposes "anchoring EU policy priorities more firmly on the revenue side of the EU budget." Michael Jäger, President of the European Taxpayers Association, explains what this means in simple terms: "As harmless as the term 'EU own resources' may sound, it is nothing other than a higher burden on taxpayers—private and corporate. The resources don't grow on trees; someone will have to pay!”
There are also further potential sources of own resources, such as a levy on electronic waste, higher taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and sugar, to name just a few. And these proposals are quite significant! One example is the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TED), which, if implemented, will lead to exorbitant price increases due to increased excise taxes on tobacco and nicotine products. It is not without reason that we at TAE have expressed our criticism of this. See also our TAE-Statement dated June 23, 2025.
There is no shortage of "good reasons" for new own resources or higher burdens. These include strengthening defence capabilities, accelerating the transformation, increasing competitiveness, combating the effects of climate change, strengthening the internal market, protecting health, and other important issues. In the Commission's view, this requires additional resources. The results in proposals such as skimming off corporate profits, which are already taxed, but from the EU Commission’s viewpoint apparently in the wrong place or not at a high enough level.
Or, in the name of improving health, additional or higher taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and sugar are being introduced. The establishment of a Social Climate Fund is intended to relieve financially weaker households of the additional burdens resulting from the introduction of a new emissions trading system for buildings and road transport in the EU. The fact that the EU itself is partly responsible for these burdens is being swept under the carpet.
A brand-new corporate tax proposal from the Commission on “Corporate Resource for Europe”, or CORE for short, has now been leaked. In it, the EU Commission proposes a turnover-based taxation of corporate profits. All companies worth 50 million euros or more would be affected - both in the EU and non-EU companies with a permanent establishment in the EU. How could anyone come up with such an abstruse idea of basing a company tax on turnover and not on profits, which would then also flow into the EU budget? If this were to be done under the guise of strengthening the internal market, it would be the joke of the century, says Michael Jäger.
The European Taxpayers Association is also concerned that the number of supporters of more EU own resources and a higher EU budget appears to be growing in the EU Parliament as well.
What is missing from the entire discussion are proposals for savings and new priorities. "Tax increases must always be a last resort and not an end in themselves. Taxpayers are not a self-service store, neither for the EU nor nationally," said Taxpayer Chief Michael Jäger.
Even if we now make ourselves unpopular with many people in Brussels, we see it as our duty to fight for sustainable finances, and that excludes new or increased EU own resources. "Brussels's efforts to acquire ever more powers through the back door must be stopped," the Taxpayers President continued.
We call on the EU, and especially EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to stop this misguided path!
Download TAE Presse- Release in the complete wording
Brussels/Munich, July 15, 2025
