Research Paper on:
European Union, Ireland, and the Conflict Surrounding the VRT Vehicle Registration Tax ; The Conflict between Ireland and the EU

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
are required to eliminate trade tariffs between countries. This means that import duties between countries have been eliminated. These duties were a good source of income for many countries. The  aim of the measures is to create a single market with a level playing field. However, the loss of income to a government will often create interesting measures to replace  that income. Ireland is one country that has looked at the situation of cars, and introduced a new tax; the vehicle registration tax (Twomey, 2002). This is a controversial tax,  with the EU making calls for this tax to be withdrawn that have been ignored (Twomey, 2002). To understand why the this tax is so controversial we need to look  at both the tax in Ireland as well as the European Union position regarding the harmonisation of taxes across the EU. After customs and excise were forced to drop  the import taxation on cars a new tax was introduced, the Vehicle Registration Tax, introduced in 1993, also know as the VRT, is a very unpopular tax, even with Irish  citizens. This tax was seen as a covert and underhanded method of retaining tax imports on cars. This is particularly important as in Ireland all cars are imported due to  a lack of manufacturing facilities in the country. Therefore, this is a clever tool it keep import taxes in place. The tax is payable when a car is first  registered in the country. This is equally applicable to new and second hand cars (Burns, 1999). It is claimed that this may be seen as an illegal tax for two  main reasons. Firstly the claim that this is still excise duty under another name has many merits, all cars are imported and with VRT tax rates between 22.5% payable on