This study deals with the assignment of tax competencies to subcentral governments and with the structure of this assignment of revenues. This review reconsiders the issues raised by Musgrave twenty-five years later. It poses the question of whether the tendency towards internationalization in the assignment of taxes follows the steps prescribed by economists, and it concludes with some reflections on the most probably future of the decentralization of the tax systems. In the course of this discussion, we distinguish between industrialized countries, countries in transition and developing countries.