If you are playing for time, you have to swamp your creditors with proposals how you are going to improve. “This time it’ll work, honest, guv.” So the Greek government is now proposing a secret tax police, where ordinary citizens would be wired with cameras and microphones to catch tax evaders. It’s a terrible idea, especially when there are easier alternatives.
Taxes
The French government is hoping to help consumers – and increase growth – by making it illegal to manufacture products with artificially shortened lifetime. We argue that proving such case will be nearly impossible in modern technology and the ban will act as a tax, with consequences even worse than the status quo. If governments want to artificially boost production, they should in fact subsidise products with shortened lifetime, instead of banning them.
9 EU countries have not adopted the Euro, 19 have. Both groups include similar proportions of countries with high, medium and low levels of economic freedom. However, IREF’s investigation of what has been happening to economic freedom in the two groups reveals significant differences. While non-Euro countres moved towards more fiscally related freedom, in Eurozone it stagnated or declined.
WP 2015-01. Executive Summary Does progressive taxation on corporate income discourage entrepreneurship? At first glance, the answer seems in the positive, since as tax pressure on business increases, business activities…
Free movement of people, capital, goods and services across national borders. Those are, allegedly, the pillars of European integration. One of them, the free movement of capital, crossed swords twice…
“In order to prevent tax fraud, income tax withholding should be increased so that governments over-withhold and most taxpayers receive a refund.” This is the policy prescription in a new research about to be published. We argue that this conclusion is wrong. The authors have not proven the link between tax withholding and tax fraud, and even if, increased tax withholding creates more serious problems that would wipe out any anti-fraud benefits. Tax policy should not rely on fooling people.
Every month, the EU Commision starts dozens of legal actions against Member States for non-compliance with EU law. We evaluate the November crop of fiscally-related cases. While 2 such actions are generally a good idea, 4 are a bad idea, reducing EU citizens’ opportunities for an efficient and transparent government.
Tax cuts are pretty rare in the real world. When they do happen, they tend to be very partial, offering unjust advantages to a specific group. But even broader tax cuts can paradoxically do much harm. Using Italy as an example, this piece argues that when tax cuts lead to greater debt, they may ultimately curtail rather than enhance liberty – and long run economic growth?
How do you pay for increased government spending on education, health care and social services? By lowering the tax rate, of course… Wait, what?! Oh indeed. A new report on Swedish fiscal developments over the last dozen or so years shows what’s possible to achieve when a country tries to shake off the reputation for Europe’s highest taxes.
It is becoming a pattern. Another weekend, another 100,000+ protest against a new tax. Only not Hungary and tax on the internet, but Ireland and “tax on water”.
At least that’s how many media are reporting it. ABC runs with the headline “Marchers Protest Ireland’s New Tax on Water Supply“, RT leads with “Ireland Stands Up Against Water Tax”. Protestors’ banners also cite water tax.
IREF shows that what Ireland is actually doing is not introducing a water tax but increasing overall taxation. There are two silver linings. 1) The amount of governmental subsidy (if any) will finally be revealed, and 2) the government will stop encouraging waste of an increasingly precious resource.