EU taxes play a key role in political and economic discussions about the future of the EU own resource system, and their desirability can vary accordingly. It is therefore essential to clearly articulate the goals which are to be achieved by the introduction of this new financing tool. This paper provides a critical overview of advantages and disadvantages of EU taxes. Reviewing the conventional fiscal federalism and political economy literature on this topic it can be concluded that there is no obvious (overall) case for funding the EU budget with EU taxes rather than with contributions by Member States which currently make up for the lion’s share of EU own resources. There are, however, some specific issues arising from a sustainability perspective, which could be addressed with the introduction of EU taxes. Departing from a comprehensive concept of sustainability, which is based on the economic, the social, the environmental and the cultural/institutional pillar of sustainability, the paper reviews sustainability gaps in taxation in the EU. EU taxes if designed accordingly may be suitable instruments to reduce these sustainability gaps. The paper also develops criteria based on the four dimensions of sustainability that may be used in a next step to evaluate potential candidates for EU taxes.