The Washington state Senate approved a tax package that would raise $890 million over the next sixteen months. The tax package includes a temporary three-tenths-of-a-cent sales tax increase plus increased…
The Institute of Economic Affairs is publishing a study on the burden of tax compliance and administration in the UK.
This monograph shows the severely regressive nature of the costs of complying with the UK tax system – small firms suffer far more than large firms from the imposition of government bureaucracy related to tax collection.
The European Commission is working on a study of the impacts that a tax on carbon emissions would have in the European Union. The Commission is about to come up in the coming months with a proposal for a “green” tax.
Before the appointment of the new commissioners last year, the Commission was considering a proposal for minimum tax on energy products based on their carbon dioxide emissions as part of a broader plan to reform energy taxation in the Union.
The annual report of the World Bank is announcing a record level of the number of business regulation reforms in the world. Between June 2008 and May 2009, 287 reforms were recorded in 131 economies, 20% more than the year before.The good news are that “reformers focused on making it easier to start and operate a business, strengthening property rights and improving the efficiency of commercial dispute resolution and bankruptcy procedures”, as one can read in the report. Eastern Europe was one of the more active regions. Here is the ranking of the 27 European countries:
This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on February 24, 2010
In the 20th century, we often heard the maxim, “the war is the health of the state.” In the 21st, fear has become the health of the state. We are encouraged to fear all manner of things—for our finances, for our health, for the planet. But the solution—more power to the state—is always the same.
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Unscrupulous governments are eager to take advantage of public apprehensions to claim more power for themselves and take away our freedoms.
This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on February 24, 2010
Several European countries have used complex fiscal instruments and aggressive bookkeeping in order to meet the euro zone fiscal ceilings, according to an article published in the Wall Street Journal. Indeed, the caps of a debt level below 60% of the GDP and of a budget deficit below 3% is apparently source of trouble even for countries with a reputation of rigorous public finances.
Tax Policy Lessons from the 2000s brings together the most up-to-date research available on tax policy with trenchant analysis by America’s leading economists. The authors explore the role taxes should play in setting environmental policy; the effect of tax rate increases on labor supply and reported taxable income; the economic impact of deficit-financed tax reductions; and the effect of the tax system on businesses’ financial and investment decisions.
The renewed interest in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is premature. They are currently the mainstays of the U.S. housing market–more important now than they were before being placed in a government conservatorship in September 2008. Many observers do not believe the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) can survive the immense losses they will cause taxpayers, but this is far from true.
