Resource taxes and related instruments – an overview

The study considers various effects and factors to be taken into account with regard to a material input tax for plastics. The material input tax is a possible instrument to reduce resource consumption. Such a tax is attributed with various positive effects such as the internalization of negative externalities, the reduction of misallocations or the promotion of sufficiency, efficiency and consistency in production and consumption. If the material input tax were introduced as part of a socio-ecological tax reform, taxes on the factor labor could also be reduced in parallel. At the same time, however, the introduction of such a tax is associated with practical challenges, such as substitution effects, difficulties in determining an ecologically effective tax level, or the implementation of the necessary border adjustment.