IREF

The Commission has requested Spain, under EU state aid rules, to abolish a 2002 provision in its corporate tax that allows Spanish companies to amortise ‘financial goodwill’ deriving from acquisitions of shareholdings in companies in third countries. The Commission also asks for the recovery of any aid granted under this provision since 21 December 2007 where concrete legal obstacles to investment could not be demonstrated.

While governments are tempted to raise taxes on capital gain in order to reduce their public deficits, the study realized by the London based Adam Smith Institute explains why the temptation should be resisted. Based on clear economic reasoning and on evidence from the US, Australia and Canada, they show that there is a Laffer curve effect at work; one that is probably stronger than in the case of personal income tax. In other words: higher capital gains tax rates are very likely to give lower tax revenues.

In 2006 a major change was implemented in France regarding the income tax. Not only the top marginal rate was lowered (from 48.09% to 40.00%), but the same treatment was…

This is the question addressed by Jason Fichtner and Katelyn Christ in their working paper for the Mercatus Center. They explain that a real tax reform is necessary, rather than…

Philipp Bagus, a young Spanish scholar and one of the prize winners of the IREF Essay Contest, recently published a very interesting book on the European monetary system. Using the…

If we are smart enough to avoid armed conflicts, protectionism and the like, there are good reasons to believe that it will be a nice year for all of us,…

In Slovakia, the economic growth has been one of the strongest in the EU over the period 2004-2008 and it came with soaring tax revenues. This growth itself was the by-product of several important reforms, especially the tax reform. It was based on real investments, not on speculation on real estate markets or inflated construction sector. After the 2008 crisis, the relatively low Slovak debt of 35.4% GDP does not attract as much attention as countries around the Mediterranean Sea or Ireland.

This is the cumulated budget deficit of the OECD countries in 2010. On average, it represents 7.5 GDP points.

No, this is not a joke, but one of the suggestions of the very serious and very official report that the French President Sarkozy commissioned to the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Indeed, according to the figures presented by the headed by Stiglitz Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the traditional disposable income measure, which estimates income per capita in France to be only 66% of income in the US, is inadequate.

While some states, departments and cantons around the world are struggling for more fiscal autonomy, the Scottish government is hesitating to grasp at the opportunity offered by the UK government. The proposal of the new Scotland bill is to allow the Scottish government to increase or cut income tax rates by up to 50% for basic rate taxpayers, and by 20% at the highest rate. In exchange, the central government in Westminster plans to cut a part of its transfers to Scotland. It makes sense, since “autonomy” usually goes with “responsibility”.