The structure of a country’s tax code is a key factor in its economic performance. A well-structured tax code is easy for taxpayers to comply with and improves the competitiveness of companies, particularly businesses, and promotes economic development while generating sufficient revenue for a government’s priorities. In contrast, poorly structured tax systems can be costly, distort economic decision-making and harm national economies. These economic dynamics also apply at the supranational level. While the power to tax lies in the hands of states, the EU’s long-term policy objectives, e.g. facilitating the green and digital transitions and the need to increase defence spending, will be costly and require additional government revenue. In addition, the EU will face increased debt payments for the NextGenerationEU package adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the EU takes a more active approach to direct and indirect taxation to pay for these priorities and proposes new ideas for own resources for the European budget, policymakers need an evidence-based approach. Moreover, in line with the tax provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, EU tax policy is geared towards a well-functioning single market. Tax harmonisation can have more benefits than costs if the harmonised policy is based on principles and not just the lowest common denominator. It is therefore imperative to look at what exists today, and not only in the EU. It is essential to design EU tax policy taking into account current policies in Member States, in order to avoid creating more losers than winners. The variety of approaches to taxation between European and non-European countries creates the need to assess these systems against each other. To this end, the EU has developed the European Tax Policy Scorecard, which is a relative comparison of the tax systems of European countries. The European Tax Policy Scorecard aims to measure the extent to which a country's tax system adheres to two important aspects of tax policy: competitiveness and neutrality. In the Open Class, this topic will be presented and discussed by two experts and debated with the students.