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In the New York Times of March 5th, economist Tyler Cowen gives his opinion on the situation prevailing in the United States – with a debt of $9 trillion (€ 6 435 billion). Citizens, he explains, are victims of a fiscal illusion and politicians know it. To get out of that vicious circle, Cowen suggests that we listen to the wisdom of Buchanan: “Professor Buchanan argued that the real choice was between a religion of budget balance and a rule of illusion.

The latest video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains why the process of tax competition is a critical constraint on the propensity of governments to over-tax and over-spend.…

Despite the insistence of the EU and IMF representatives, Greece is balking at privatizations plan supposed to bring some €50 billion until 2015. Though, this will help the country to…

This is the tax revenue expected by the USA this year, while interest payments on the publicly held debt will be about $200 billion. Contrary to the statements of the…

The last statistics are placing France between the OECD countries with higher number of civil servants. Despite of the decrease of their number in the last years, they are still…

Environmental tax reforms have a history of almost two decades and were viewed as a way to the better world the “double-dividend” theory predicted. Much “political capital” has been invested in policies leading to environmental tax reforms on European and national levels from 1992 (the year of the first EU-wide energy and carbon tax proposal) till today. In this report, the authors compare shares of environmental taxes on GDP and overall tax revenues in the EU from 1995 till 2010 to identify the real impact of such efforts.

The current Socialist (PSOE) government in Spain has claimed in different occasions that the low fiscal pressure that Spain has experienced in 2008 and 2009, gives policy-makers a large leeway to raise taxes. Besides, this measure has been supported as necessary in order to maintain –or improve- the current government-run social safety net and the level of public infrastructures. Angel Martin explains why raising taxes in Spain is not a really good idea.

You can find here a selection of reports and papers on taxation in the EU and in European member States.

While a resolution of the debt crisis currently facing the eurozone would be most welcome, it is not clear that the current discussion goes much beyond how to bailout member countries, and whether it should be the taxpayers of these countries, the German and French taxpayer or the holders of the debts of these countries, mainly German and French banks. Even if it is decided which solution to take, the underlying problem that caused the crisis in the first place remains. This is the one-size-fits-all eurozone monetary policy.

For the first time since 2002, the credit rating of Japan has been downgraded to AA-. By doing this, the Standard and Poor’s rating agency has placed Japan on the…