Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
For Immediate Release
Monday, May 22, 2012
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
CF&P Policy Brief: Global Taxes Threaten Fiscal Sovereignty and Democratic Accountability
(Washington, D.C., Tuesday, May 22, 2012) The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation released today a new Libertas policy brief highlighting the dangers of proposals coming out of organizations such as the United Nations and World Health Organization to self-fund through global taxes. Entitled, “The Case against Taxing Powers and Direct Funding for International Organizations,” the paper provides a brief overview of efforts by international organizations to institute global taxes, and the theoretical and practical concerns should they succeed.
Link to the Libertas paper: http://freedomandprosperity.org/2012/publications/the-case-against-taxing-powers-and-direct-funding-for-international-organizations/
“Governments must resist the efforts of these organizations to enact global taxes,” Andrew Quinlan, President of the Center for Freedom & Prosperity. “Once a single such tax exists it will open up the flood gates and there will be hundreds of these international bureaucracies looking to get their own slice of the world’s productive output.”
Dan Mitchell, Cato Institute Senior Fellow and Chairman of CF&P’s Board, said “The tobacco taxes sought by the WHO would be the camel’s nose under the tent, leading to more anti-democratic tax schemes.”
“Combining the reduced levels of political accountability inherent to international organizations with the power to tax is a recipe for more government and a loss of individual freedom,” added Brian Garst, CF&P’s Director of Government Affairs.
The Libertas paper provides timely arguments to governments being pressured into serving as tax collectors for unaccountable international bureaucrats. It concludes by pointing out that international organizations desperately want the taxing powers of national governments, but in order to get it they will have to trick governments into believing that they will not lose any sovereign power in the process. If governments give in, the paper warns, the result will be “an expansion of big government policies implemented under a one-size-fits-all international system.”
The paper is the third in CF&P’s new Libertas series, which provides brief analysis of issues affecting tax competition, fiscal sovereignty and financial privacy. Previous papers highlighted how OECD subsidies work against US interests, and the economic threat posed by onerous new financial reporting requirements on nonresident aliens who invest in the US.
For additional information:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Dan Mitchell can be reached at 202-218-4615, dmitchell@cato.org
Brian Garst can be reached at bgarst@freedomandprosperity.org
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