Taxes

More than 100 member countries representatives participated in the annual meeting of the Global Tax Forum in Bermuda. The Global Forum is charged with the monitoring and peer review of the implementation of the standards of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes. It became notorious with the publication three years ago of grey and black lists of alleged “tax havens”.

Portugal is the third EU country after Greece and Ireland to need financial bail-out in order to avoid bankruptcy of the State. How did things go so wrong and for what reason – is it only the fault of the international financial crisis, or – more probably – bad management of public finances from the Potuguese government? Ricardo Campelo de Magalhães answers those questions in the light of a detailed analysis of Portuguese fiscal policy.

In January 2010, the largest tax reform in Denmark in more than ten years began taking effect, shifting some DKK 30 billion (€ 4.0 billion) of tax revenue when fully implemented in 2019. Of this, more than DKK 25 billion (€ 3.4 billion) is used to lower the marginal tax on income in order to encourage work and investment. In 2010 the top marginal tax rate was lowered from 63 percent to 56.1 percent – its lowest level in at least 40 years.

One of the biggest Bulgarian newspapers Ce?? published an article from IREF’s board member Pierre Garello. The article is presenting the main conclusions of our Yearbook on European Taxation 2011.…

The Spanish newspaper LibreMercado.com published an article from IREF’s fellow Angel Martin, with reference to our Yearbook on European Taxation 2011. You can read the paper here.

France’s government presents a project to introduce several modifications in the fiscal law; a project to be validated by the National Assembly before the symbolic date of July 14.

This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

In the past year, Brussels has revealed its near-obsession with fiscal convergence in Europe. As the euro zone’s debt crises roil financial markets, the EU’s leaders have made clear that the only path they see to survival is centralized budgetary oversight and harmonized tax policy.

Confirming the analysis found in IREF’s 2011 yearbook, the 2011 Paying Taxes report of the Price Waterhouse Coopers says that reducing rates of profit tax is the most popular tax…

On Wednesday16 March 2011 the EU Commission published a proposal to introduce a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB). A few days earlier, on Friday 11 March, the heads of state of the Euro area almost agreed on a « Pact for the Euro » to save the common currency from financial meltdown and come to the rescue of delinquent members (an agreement that subsequently came unstitched). These two events did not appear to be linked, except in timing. But they both illustrated, each in their own way, what one could call the EU’s « Icarus Complex ».

The European Commission has recently relaunched the proposal for a common system for calculating the tax base of businesses operating in the EU. According to the officials, the aim is to significantly reduce the administrative burden, compliance costs and legal uncertainties that businesses in the EU currently face in having to comply with up to 27 different national systems for determining their taxable profits.