The Commission [...] stated [...] that taxes on personal income may be left to Member States even when the European Union achieves a higher level of integration than at present [...] acknowledged that co-ordination at EU level is in some cases necessary to safeguard the application of the Treaty freedoms and to eliminate tax obstacles to cross-border activities [...] also referred to the need to co-ordinate personal income taxes to prevent double taxation or unintentional non-taxation in cross-border situations, or to tackle cross-border tax evasion.(personal tax overview)

the Commission [...] identified several steps which could be taken to remove individual tax obstacles to cross-border trade in the Internal Market and the Commission and Member States are currently discussing these [...] also concluded that in the longer term Member States should agree to allow EU companies to use a single consolidated base for computing tax on their EU-wide profits.(company tax overview)

The most commonly applied excise duties are those on

• alcoholic beverages,
  
• manufactured tobacco products and
  
• energy products (motor fuels and heating fuels, such as petrol and gasoline, electricity, natural gas, coal and coke).
  

All EU Member States apply excise duties to these three product categories. The revenue from excise duties accrues entirely to the Member States.

EU legislation [...] can be divided into three main categories:

• The structure of the tax to be applied to a particular group of products.
  
• The minimum rates of duty that Member States have to respect for each type of product.
  
• General provisions that [...] concern in particular the production, storage and movement between Member States of excise products. (excise overview)