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IREF is a free-market oriented think tank. It promotes ideas, events, and academic research. With regard to research, IREF supports original projects that lead to the production of papers of…

According to the latest statistics, the economic growth in the United Kingdom has reached 3% (annual rate) in the last quarter of 2013. This is the highest rate since 2007. For comparison, the French growth was 0.3% yoy (2013).

This little county on the shores of the Baltic Sea will become the 18th member of the Eurozone. That is well deserved since Latvia meets all of the Maastricht criteria.…

Fortune has ranked the 50 most admired companies worldwide. Of course, Apple, Google, Amazon and Coca Cola are above all others. Among non-US companies can be found two German companies…

The European economy is under threat. But it is not by producing another treaty that it will be saved. In order to restore the trust required to produce economic progress, the states first must enforce the existing treaties, in particular the Maastricht rules on a 3 per cent deficit and a debt of 60 per cent of GDP. If you support this position, please send us a message by clicking on contact@irefeurope.org

Minimum sanctions for tax crimes, a cross-border tax identification number, an EU tax-payer’s charter and stronger common measures against tax havens are some of the measures proposed by the Commission in a recently edited press release.

The French Cour des Comptes (National Audit Office) published this Monday a new report on public finances. Without surprise, the ambition to limit the budget deficit to 4.4% of GDP in 2012 is confirmed to be unrealistic. An extra six to ten billion euro would be necessary in order to meet this commitment, and this is without taking into account the new promises and expenses scheduled since François Hollande’s election. Meanwhile, the new financial Minister Pierre Moscovici, keeps claiming his profound hostility to austerity and budget cuts.

Starting July 1, French taxpayers will have to pay an extra 2% on top of the “Generalized Social Contribution” that was so far set at 13.5%. This brings the new rate of the General Social Contribution on labor and capital incomes to 15.5%.

The first significant policy move from the newly elected president is the repeal of part of his predecessor’s pension reform. As promised during the electoral campaign, President Hollande is bringing the legal age for retirement back from 62 to 60 years for those who started working at an early age. According to the French employer’s association MEDEF, this will lead to a 0.5% increase of the social contributions paid by employees.

In an interview with the Guardian, Madam Lagarde says it is time for Greece to pay back and insists on the fairness of it – “Greeks have to pay taxes now and assume their past mistakes,” she says, adding that “As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time”. If her mathematics is somehow correct, she obviously doesn’t think about those who did not participate in the government’s wasting of money and find themselves today on the same boat with all the others.