Companies & Regulation

While some states, departments and cantons around the world are struggling for more fiscal autonomy, the Scottish government is hesitating to grasp at the opportunity offered by the UK government. The proposal of the new Scotland bill is to allow the Scottish government to increase or cut income tax rates by up to 50% for basic rate taxpayers, and by 20% at the highest rate. In exchange, the central government in Westminster plans to cut a part of its transfers to Scotland. It makes sense, since “autonomy” usually goes with “responsibility”.

The low fares airline Ryanair announced the closure of its only French base in Marseille from January 2011. As a consequence, 13 Marseille routes will be closed, cutting the city from important flows of tourists. The closure is following the commencement of legal proceedings against Ryanair’s Marseille base, where all of its 200 pilots and cabin crew work on Irish aircraft (i.e. Irish territory) and pay their taxes and social insurance contributions in Ireland where they receive their Irish pay.

The new US$600 billion round of “quantitative easing” by the Fed announced by Ben Bernanke is undoubtedly a topic to be discussed during the coming G20 meeting in Korea. Indeed, the reverse side of a cheaper dollar is a more expensive euro, Japanese yen, Chinese yuan etc. Exporters in those countries are likely to find themselves in a disadvantageous position to US firms in global markets. The Fed move is also likely to generate massive losses to the largest dollar holders such as the People’s Bank of China and the Bank of Japan.

According to a poll by TNS Sofres, 2/3 of French people confess to have had any training courses in economics at school or at the University. Only one in ten…

„We reform firmly, gradually and effectively” said Poland’s Finance Minister, refuting accusations that his government is postponing important reforms to public finances until after the next parliamentary elections, expected for 2011. And yet these reforms can be summed up in only in one way: they are poor.

Singapore will host tomorrow the Global Tax Forum 2010. According to Dan Mitchell from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, the OECD will attempt there to promote a project against tax competition. This project received a boost when the Obama Administration joined forces with countries such as France and Germany, but the tide is now turning against high-tax nations – particularly as more people understand that such an approach inevitably leads to Greek-style fiscal collapse.

This is the number of US government regulatory agencies for financial services before the 2008 crisis, according to Prof. Laurence Kotlikoff’s most recent book, Jimmy Stewart is Dead. Obviously, the…

This is the problem that government representatives are discussing at the United Nations antipoverty summit this week.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy hurried up to announce that despite of its deficits France will increase its aid by 20% and become the second world contributor after the USA. Donating public money, he added, is not enough to help end poverty and meet other U.N. goals. He renewed France’s push for a small international tax on financial transactions. This proves, if anything else two things : that the French President has an interesting understanding of the concept of “donation” and that he has no understanding at all of how development works.

Economic freedom around the world fell for the first time in decades, according to the Economic Freedom of the World: 2010 Annual Report, released by the Cato Institute in conjunction with the Fraser Institute of Canada. In this year’s index, Hong Kong retains the highest rating for economic freedom, followed by Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Chile, the United States, Canada, Australia, Mauritius, and the United Kingdom.

Looking for budget savings

Some analysts are suspecting that the current fragile economic recovery will be damaged by the policy of government spending cuts that many countries undertook in order to reduce their public budget deficits. The debate is perfervid, in particular in the US where the government has opted for the keynesian policy of massive public spending. The effects of this policy, as was to be expected, have been so far calamitous and the American deficit is not about to be absorbed. Furthermore, tax reductions introduced by Bush in 2005 will expire next December and, most probably, will not be extended. An additional fiscal burden will therefore hit an already suffering economy.