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.
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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.
The economic crisis could present an opportunity to harmonise taxation policy across european states, according to a major report on the future development of the EU published by the European…
In a new Working Paper published by the American Enterprise Institute, Kevin A. Hassett and Aparna Mathur provide a brief overview of U.S. tax policy in relation to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and in relation to world averages. They describe trends in ten different tax rates between 1981 and 2007 across all thirty OECD countries. The U.S. tax code emerges, in their analysis, as exceptional in many regards. Most countries have gradually moved toward collecting a large share of their revenue from value-added taxes.
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).
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.
In his testimony on Capitol Hill, the economist Russel Roberts is exposing the reasons why the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) has not the anticipated by government effect on jobs creation. He is pointing out that given the lack of success so far and the role uncertainty plays in the decision-making of entrepreneurs, investors and consumers, doing less might, paradoxically, be more successful than doing more, especially if the “more” that is done works in the wrong direction.