Publications

An age-old phenomenon: Some unemployment exists and politicians want to fight it by creating conditions for new jobs. The usual recipe involves expanding government spending and investment programs. Figures for OECD countries show that places with low taxation of labour tend to exhibit low unemployment low and high levels of individual annual work hours. For politicians this serves as a much more promising recipe for politicians: the best way of “creating conditions for new jobs” and lowering unemployment is to reduce the tax burden on labour.

European Parliament has just voted to increase the budget each MEP can spend on their assistants. This can hardly be justified. Worse, it can increase the deluge of new regulations.

International institutions like IMF or World Bank do often give economic policy advice to poorer countries, but generally only after thorough analysis. EU does not specialise in such anaislys, and its diplomats should avoid dispensing such unfounded advice altogether.

There are plenty of reasons to panic about the level of UK government deficits and debt. But Brexit, even if it actually came, is not one of them. We review the relationship between a UK-sans-EU and public finance.

UK might not get a single party government after next month’s election. Again. Moody’s are not worried about the consequences for government finances. They probably should be.

Say you want to pass your wealth to others after you die, since you cannot take it with you. – If you pass it to friends and family, many (18)…

Bank for International Settlements has labelled the impact of recent European quantitative easing as “unprecedented”. Worrying effects are not only the negative interest rates, but also very high price volatilities of asset. This development may soon hit not only economic, but also legal and even political boundaries.

The Austrian federal state of Carinthia continues to suffer from its long engagement with the Alpe Adria bank, which actually predates the recent crisis. Instead of making a quick cut liquidation after a bail-in, it is hoping to recover some assets in a dragged out wind-down process. It is to be seen whether this prolonged exposition to further claims will prove successful.

In the Middle Ages in the Middle East, merchants and travellers would sometimes have a proof of having paid their tax tattooed on their necks, to prove that they don’t have to pay again. Modern EU has devised a less painful alternative – a “Portable Document A1”. It is automatically recognised everywhere – except in Belgium. That’s worse than mediaeval…

The impression from media is that companies pay “only” somewhere around 20-30% tax rate in the EU, if they pay at all. That’s only the headline figure for one tax they pay. Total tax rates are well over 40%, French businesses pay 2/3 of their profits in tax. What’s worse, the big economies of Germany and France, already heavy taxers, have increased the tax rate over the past 10 years. This does not bode well for the future.

Businesses both pay taxes and collect them from others for the government. How administratively burdensome is this activity across the EU, North American and EFTA? We assess the evidence and identify, whether it is the frequency of filing or complicated tax returns that matter.