Prince Hans-Adam of Liechtenstein is able to look at the modern nation-state from many different angles: as a head of state; as a politician, who had to win popular votes in a direct democracy; as a businessman active in different continents; and as an historian who has studied the influence of military technology, transportation and the economy on the workings of the state.The State in the Third Millenniumanalyzes the forces that have shaped human history in the past and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future. These include religions, ideologies, military technology and economics.
Despite decades of repeated failure, President Obama and Congress continue to promote the myth that government can spend its way out of recession. Heritage Foundation economic policy expert Brian Riedl…
The French Constitutional Council pronounced a negative opinion on the cherished by President Sarkozy and his government carbon tax project.
The carbon tax was meant to apply on products related to high emissions of CO2, like petrol, gas, coal, fuel oil, LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) when used as combustible. It was supposed to be imposed to every physical or moral person, except those already subject to the European Emissions Trade System (ETS).
Because of the “Tobin Tax”, Professor James Tobin has involuntary become the spearhead of numerous anti-mondialist organizations. A tax synonymous of “compulsory charity” from “rich” (countries) (executing several billions of financial transactions) to “poor” (countries) (victims of the “law of the strongest”). The principle is a systematical taxation of all financial transactions. A simple and ethical principle? It is not that obvious… Numerous scientifical voices clearly explain why this kind of project is not applicable. First of all, such a principle implies an unanimous understanding between countries all over the world; if not, some new “Fiscal Eden” can appears. Next, who can prevent a government to increase the tax rate as high as it wants, even if this destabilizes all exchanges? James Tobin himself explains that some organizations have highjacked his name and his scientifical production to try to defend their ideals.
The tale tells that Arthur B. Laffer sketched his famous curve on a napkin during a lunch with Jude Wanniski, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. At that time, he surely did not imagine the renown that will follow this day of December 1974. The Laffer curve relates for each tax rate the expected total tax revenues. For low rates, tax rate and tax revenues move in the same way. But, as rates increase, this relation works in the opposite direction: higher tax rate produces smaller tax revenues. Hence, beyond this “maximum tax rate” the disincentive” effect of taxation is overwhelming. Nonetheless, this maximum rate is not empirically defined: it depends on place, time, circumstances, etc. The following file does not pretend to be exhaustive. Its goal is to introduce key arguments about Laffer Curve.
The existence of tax havens is more than ever a subject of controversy. While the European Union, as well as the USA and the OECD countries are trying to put pressure on the governments of States considered as tax havens, the understanding of what is at stake is becoming more and more obscure. We are trying here to help you to form an objective opinion about this issue.
You can find here links of interest on wordwide taxation and international comparisions.
In this CF&P Foundation video entitled, “Deficits are Bad, but the Real Problem is Spending,” Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute explains that huge deficits and skyrocketing debt are rightly causing worry, but these are merely symptoms of the real problem of excessive government spending. “Fiscal responsibility is lacking in Washington.
Fiscal strategic interaction is a recurrent topic of recent economic literature. This short paper describes a database created as an instrument to analyze such interactions between Italian municipalities in local…
You can find here links of interest and statistical data about French taxation and debt.